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- Joined
- Jun 16, 2020
Now let's not be hasty here. Constance Meadows loved her job. She absolutely loved it. Being a stewardess (airline hostess sounded so contrived) was the best thing since woman first discovered rocky road ice cream. From her first flight at the age of six, she had been enamored with air travel, and had worked diligently throughout adolescence to secure a position with one of the major carriers. In her career to date at United Airlines, now going on her fifth year, she had visited 326 cities, all 50 states, and as of last count, her passport carried the stamp of 63 different nations. She had over 1500 Facebook friends worldwide, and many of them she actually considered friends. She honestly woke up every morning looking forward to her day, which, as those in the working world know, isn't all that common anymore.
But then there were days like today. Days in which she looked longingly at the door to the 767 and walking out never to return. Mid Flight. First came the redeye from Sea-Tac to O'Hare. Redeyes are never pleasant as they are always too early, and flying west meant that even though the clock said 11:00 when she arrived, her brain was still saying eight. But in the end, it wasn't that bad - everyone was still asleep. The 11:35 from Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth was a whole deeper circle of Hell. First of all, as one might notice, Connie's flight arrived at eleven, which was one full hour late, which meant a mad dash across the terminal simply in order to get to the gate on time. Then came the actual flight. The Captain who swore he could fly the plane one-handed and made very clear what he wanted to do with the other hand - at least until Connie suggested that if he kept it up, he'd be flying one-handed for the rest of his natural life. The gentleman in 34C who insisted on passing his time watching a racy film on his iPad, much to the displeasure of the family with three children in Row 35. And of course there was the lovely couple who had decided to make this the momentous day when they would enter the mile-high club. Which was all very romantic unless you were the one who had to fish the Manolo Blahnik clogging up the lavatory. And then be berated for the shoe being returned in that bright blue shade of toilet cleaner. It took every ounce of tact for Connie not to call the woman an idiot for wearing white shoes while pursuing pleasure in a commode in the first place. All she wanted to do was land, get out, and fly back home to Chicago where she could collapse on her own bed.
But it was not to be. People unfamiliar with Texas tend to think of its climate in terms of what they see in cowboy movies: hot and dusty. But that is only part of the story. People who live in Texas know that in fact it has four seasons: Hot, Hotter, Damn Hot, and What the Fuck is This? What the Fuck is This season came to Texas two weeks early, and as usual, the good people at DFW were not prepared for the ice storm. To be fair, it would have presented a challenge to airport personnel in more prepared Northern Climes - even Minneapolis or Boston. But such considerations mean little to people when they realize that every connecting flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth has been cancelled. Suddenly the only thing the father on Flight 268 to Orlando can think of is that his family is getting to Disney World a day late; the businesswoman on Flight 637 realizes that she will not make her meeting in Denver tomorrow morning; the studmuffin on Flight 116 to Vegas isn't going to make it for his best friend's bachelor party. Multiply that by about a thousand (keeping in mind that DFW is American's main hub) and one might understand the scene that evening.
Ever the team player, Connie was more than willing to help out the gate agents in doing their best to book the stranded passengers to their destinations on still theoretical flights tomorrow morning. And also to find them all hotel rooms for the night. It was about 9 in the evening when the mess was entirely straightened out and the gate agent next to her gave her a grateful hug and a voucher for a room at the Airport Sheraton. She in turn handed him her cell number for the next time she was in town. Strictly platonic, though. Bob was only into redheads, and probably more importantly, only into men. So Constance found herself making a ten minute sprint across the airport, rolling her bag behind her, her blonde shoulder length curls flying everywhere, and her blue uniform in a very rare state of disarray just in time to slip into the Sheraton courtesy van as it was arriving on its forty-seventh round trip that evening.
Room was scarce as one might imagine. And so Connie found that she was sharing the room with four other people. Not that she minded... that much. It was going to get cozy tonight, to be sure, but it was only for one night, and she'd be up early in the morning. They'd manage... somehow. In the meanwhile, she gave her easy, professional smile as she looked at the others and asked, "So, probably not what you expected when you boarded the plane today, was it?"
But then there were days like today. Days in which she looked longingly at the door to the 767 and walking out never to return. Mid Flight. First came the redeye from Sea-Tac to O'Hare. Redeyes are never pleasant as they are always too early, and flying west meant that even though the clock said 11:00 when she arrived, her brain was still saying eight. But in the end, it wasn't that bad - everyone was still asleep. The 11:35 from Chicago to Dallas-Fort Worth was a whole deeper circle of Hell. First of all, as one might notice, Connie's flight arrived at eleven, which was one full hour late, which meant a mad dash across the terminal simply in order to get to the gate on time. Then came the actual flight. The Captain who swore he could fly the plane one-handed and made very clear what he wanted to do with the other hand - at least until Connie suggested that if he kept it up, he'd be flying one-handed for the rest of his natural life. The gentleman in 34C who insisted on passing his time watching a racy film on his iPad, much to the displeasure of the family with three children in Row 35. And of course there was the lovely couple who had decided to make this the momentous day when they would enter the mile-high club. Which was all very romantic unless you were the one who had to fish the Manolo Blahnik clogging up the lavatory. And then be berated for the shoe being returned in that bright blue shade of toilet cleaner. It took every ounce of tact for Connie not to call the woman an idiot for wearing white shoes while pursuing pleasure in a commode in the first place. All she wanted to do was land, get out, and fly back home to Chicago where she could collapse on her own bed.
But it was not to be. People unfamiliar with Texas tend to think of its climate in terms of what they see in cowboy movies: hot and dusty. But that is only part of the story. People who live in Texas know that in fact it has four seasons: Hot, Hotter, Damn Hot, and What the Fuck is This? What the Fuck is This season came to Texas two weeks early, and as usual, the good people at DFW were not prepared for the ice storm. To be fair, it would have presented a challenge to airport personnel in more prepared Northern Climes - even Minneapolis or Boston. But such considerations mean little to people when they realize that every connecting flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth has been cancelled. Suddenly the only thing the father on Flight 268 to Orlando can think of is that his family is getting to Disney World a day late; the businesswoman on Flight 637 realizes that she will not make her meeting in Denver tomorrow morning; the studmuffin on Flight 116 to Vegas isn't going to make it for his best friend's bachelor party. Multiply that by about a thousand (keeping in mind that DFW is American's main hub) and one might understand the scene that evening.
Ever the team player, Connie was more than willing to help out the gate agents in doing their best to book the stranded passengers to their destinations on still theoretical flights tomorrow morning. And also to find them all hotel rooms for the night. It was about 9 in the evening when the mess was entirely straightened out and the gate agent next to her gave her a grateful hug and a voucher for a room at the Airport Sheraton. She in turn handed him her cell number for the next time she was in town. Strictly platonic, though. Bob was only into redheads, and probably more importantly, only into men. So Constance found herself making a ten minute sprint across the airport, rolling her bag behind her, her blonde shoulder length curls flying everywhere, and her blue uniform in a very rare state of disarray just in time to slip into the Sheraton courtesy van as it was arriving on its forty-seventh round trip that evening.
Room was scarce as one might imagine. And so Connie found that she was sharing the room with four other people. Not that she minded... that much. It was going to get cozy tonight, to be sure, but it was only for one night, and she'd be up early in the morning. They'd manage... somehow. In the meanwhile, she gave her easy, professional smile as she looked at the others and asked, "So, probably not what you expected when you boarded the plane today, was it?"
