When Thirty Year’s of Growing Pain(s) stumbled upon my favorite post, The Flight Attendant, I decided I would repost it. Then I came up with  a way to celebrate my favorite bloggers that would go beyond including their links in a blogroll. I hope it works out.

The Flight Attendant

Yesterday, in the back of the pickup, we met up with an Irish girl who was about 21 traveling on her own, a young British couple (who literally looked like they were 15 years old – the female half of the couple had been traveling five months on her own), and a mother/daughter duo from the United States.

Immediately, there was conversation about where have you been, where are you going, what have you been doing, etc., etc.? The mom who was approximately 52 to 53ish exclaimed with pride that she was a flight attendant. I was a little taken aback by her excited proclamation. She then went on to explain, much to all of our envy, that she and her daughter had flown first class to Thailand from New York for $78.00. “They greeted us with champagne and gave us menus,” she exclaimed with the giddiness of me when I see a Thai vehicle with seatbelts. I honestly thought, I’d like to marry this woman for her airline benefits.

Eventually, she told us her story. She used to own an oil changing franchise and a couple of other investment type businesses. One day her sister came into the oil changing establishment and found her crying. The sister said, “I have never seen you so miserable.” That day, she decided she would sell the businesses and do something different with her life.

She decided she would like to be a flight attendant and asked her sister to help her look for something online. A couple of weeks later she was on her way to New York City to interview for a flight attendant job. There were about 150 applicants there; she called her sister, and said, “What was I thinking? There is no way I am going to get this job!” Two hours later she was being drug tested and looking for an apartment in NYC.

Here’s the clincher, this all happened within the last year! She’s in her early fifties, a flight attendant, and traveling the world first class for 78 bucks a shot!

I thought about it for a second or two, and then asked, “Is there a maximum weight limit for flight attendants.”

The Irish girl egged me on, “You should do it!!!” “Yes, yes!” everyone in the back of the truck encouraged except Kip and Ralphie who were mortified that I was speaking out loud.

“Well,” I thought, “If I lose 50 pounds so I don’t have to walk down the aisle sideways and get the pesky broken toe fixed so I can wear heels, this could work.”

Then I remembered I am deaf in my left ear. The flight attendant reassured me, “Not a problem, nobody ever asked me if I was deaf.” I responded, “Well, I think they will figure out something is wrong when everyone on the left side of the plane ends up with the wrong order.” Even Kip cracked a smile for that.

Later, I told Tony, “I don’t think the flight attendant thing will work out for me; I am horrible in a crisis, plus I think the pilots would get tired of me tapping on the cockpit door asking if they see that big plane at the end of the runway that hasn’t cleared our path, and oh yeah, I have a latent fear of flying!”

Tony replied , “I could be a pilot.”

Do you have a favorite post, please visit my Y R U Even Saying This? page to share it with our blogging community! It’ll be fun. Just do it! Please. :-)

So far the links that have been posted are great! Thanks!