MindSpinner

She spoke in the usual singsong. Airline attendants’ school probably has a course in “the voice.” So “the voice” was exactly what everybody expected, maybe faintly dreaded. The same voice on every flight, whether deep or high - the same singsong. The same words. The same demonstrations.

She was pleasant looking, if nearly plasticized by her make-up, her bleached blond hair swirling loosely about her thirty-something face. Her uniform was neat; only beneath the obligatory airline wings pin was another pin, her own, a playful cat. The first words out of her mouth jangled the woman one aisle up from me on the left, in Row 9. “While our pilot figures out how to get us where we are going, I’m going to go over a few things with you.” Maybe the woman in 9B wouldn’t have been edgy had the bus driver that transported us from the gate to the plane been able to find the right plane in straightforward fashion, but he hadn’t, and we had wandered about looking for a flight already an hour late, until he finally had to get off the bus and ask, so we were all a little glad to hear that the plane we boarded would indeed be going to the City on the River, where we all had to arrive that night in order to get to work Tuesday morning. For surely the world would have fallen apart had we not gotten to work Tuesday morning. Apparently some of us did not appreciate the suggestion, even in jest, that the pilot did not know the way. It was not reaassuring. And if we want anything regarding going up into the air and coming down again, that seems to be reassurance. Upon consideration, I found some delight in the notion of ending up somewhere besides work in the morning, in Luck-of-the-Draw City. Luck-of-the-Draw City would be the best fantasy the scenario could offer, given that there was no way to imagine that we’d all be boarding a plane that wouldn’t be leaving at all.

The attendant asked us where we thought we could exit the plane in case of emergency. Right-o, the marked exit doors on Row 8. The woman in seat 9B looked back at me. We had not been told, in proper terms, where the exit door was and how to use it. I was chuckling at the departure from script. I was grateful for the relief of something even faintly unexpected. “I don’t think this is a laughing matter,” 9B grumbled, looking piercingly at me for affirmation. I stuck with my amusement, and she gave me up for an idiot and looked for an ally elsewhere. The young man sitting beside her looked deep into his book, probably right into the seams of the pages and resolutely exuded the message, “I am not with this woman in 9B. No relation at all. ”

The attendant held up a seatbelt and demonstrated clicking the ends together and tightening the belt. She did not tell us how to do this. “If you don’t know how to use this by now … you shouldn’t be allowed out in public.” Laughter rippled through the audience, except for 9B.

Then began the spiel about the pressurized cabin and the oxygen masks dropping down from overhead. “If the cabin loses pressure, put on your oxygen mask,” the attendant intoned, deftly demonstrating. “If you choose not to put it on,” she added in soothing singsong, “you will have no oxygen.”

In the unlikely event of a water landing, we were to remove our seats: “Take them with you as you exit the plane, compliments of USAir.” This sounded so generous, like a hotel giving you your towels and a bathrobe as souvenirs when you check out.

“I’m thinking of filing a complaint,” 9B intimated to the woman who sat just across the aisle from her. Protocol had been breached. The script had been subverted.

I was just glad to receive my pretzels and Coke from a woman in the usual uniform who managed, despite the repetitive nature of her job, not to be a bot. I found that - reassuring.