The flight attendant that couldn't keep her mouth shut...

On Sunday night I found myself on a little regional jet from Atlanta to Wichita. You know the little 50 seaters that have far too little leg room or head room for a grown man but they cram us in there anyway!?! As I boarded I noticed the somewhat unconventional flight attendant. She was probably late 50's early 60's, silver hair, slightly overweight. Not the standard picture of a "stewardess" even though I know that image is changing. During her pre-flight I picked up on her attention to detail as she told probably told half a dozen passengers that their bags were too big to stored under the seat in front of them and would have to be moved into the overhead. Then she made her way through the cabin and handed out 4 seat belt extension devises (basically to every passenger with a BMI over 35). In two and a half years of flying I have only seen these devises used twice... Then she made her way back to me and told me that my MP3 player had to be stored away until we reached 10,000 Ft. I showed her it was in the off position but she didn't care, it couldn't even be out of its case until we were in the air...

OK, by that point I knew she was different but it was not until her announcements that I started to get concerned. She started with the standard air masks blah blah blah and flotation devises blah blah blah but then proceeded to tell us why she had the first three rows of seats empty. "Ladies and Gentlement, I know that some of you in full rows are eying these prime seats at the front of the aircraft but this plane is what we call a tail-light aircraft. We need to have more of you sit in the rear of the aircraft to distribute the weight more properly over the wing to counterbalance the electronics and equipment in the front of the plane..." OK, that may all be true, but does she really need to announce it to the entire aircraft? Why didn't she just say "Ladies and Gentlemen, you all know what happened in Kentucky last month, it is only by the grace of God that we get this hunk of metal off the ground in the first place..."

The next incident occurred just after we cleared 10,000 feet and the seat belt light went off. All of a sudden we had 5 seconds of turbulence, not horrific, but a good shake that I'm sure would have had my wife's knuckles white were she on the plane. My mind said "wow, that was a nice thick cloud" but no, I was soon set straight as the informative flight attendant let everyone on the plane know, "Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry about that, we just passed through the wake of another jet." Now I have seen Top Gun, visions of us entering a flat spin and Goose dying upon ejection from the aircraft shoot through my head... Why on EARTH would she feel the need to tell us that?

Later, as we were making our final approach into Wichita, the landing gear deployed with the loudest clank I have heard in 2.5 years of frequent flying. One of those moments when you hold your hands out like you are Jeff Bridges as Flynn in the movie Tron. You know you are a user and if you just concentrate hard enough you can pull the broken up Recognizer back into one piece. (If you understood that example with the same clarity I gave it, all doubt of your geekdom has been erased!) The lady then comes over the intercom and it is not what she said but her timing and the way she said it, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the landing gear IS... DOWN... please prepare yourself for landing, its been a pleasure flying with you." If I didn't know better I would have thought she was saying, "Listen folks, our wheels just fell off, this is going to get rough, its been nice knowing you..."

As a frequent flyer, I think I can laugh this one off. If this had been your first flight or you are someone that is afraid of flying, this lady would have scarred you for life... Flight Attendents, even though NONE of you will EVER read this please take the following to heart, ignorance IS bliss, knowledge is not always power, and most importantly, just because it is true, doesn't make it right to communicate. The same series of incidents would have had no lasting impact without the "insightful" comments of a crazy old flight attendant.