Cup Head! Oooo that takes us back! How could we ever forget her, the kleptomaniac from our second airline together? Hee hee, she was a nightmare! We’re both quite sure she stole from us, things went missing all around her, but how can you accuse someone outright when they play their game very cleverly? No direct contact, no traces, no way to directly connect her with the missing items? She was always half-inching stuff off the aircraft, but really shit stuff, tea spoons, air freshener the cleaners had put down on the galley top, gash bags. Crap really. Stuff she was too tight to buy. You can tell a Sticky Stewardess by the airline bin bags she puts out. Bright orange or bright blue frighten-the-Bin-Man bags, and you know she’s nicked them. And we mean bright orange or bright blue, these are shades you’d have to have especially mixed by Dulux, even then they’d struggle to capture the full intensity and majesty of the hue. We’ve not a clue why they are not black and bog standard, there may be a very good reason, anyone who knows answers on a postcard please, but Jue is cynical. She says the reason is simple. She says it’s to show up Cabin Crew who pinch and thieve, and to prick their bin bag whipping conscience. Because they may be free, but they are still shameful when your wheelie lid gets lifted by professional refuse disposal experts. Although there is some good here. We hope that Easy Jet Crew like the orange ones, because if the fire retardant bag is the grey vinyl type, then it would look quite funky with their colour scheme.
Oh yeah, the fire proof bag, those smelly, nasty, germ-aticaly sealed creations, which are so important they form part of a minimum equipment list onboard and we cannot fly without them. We must put collected waste in to sealed containers, either a gash cart, a metal bin, a trash compacter, or failing that, a strong fire retardant bag with either Velcro or drawstrings to seal it tight. You probably have no idea how much crap a flight makes dear Passengers, but we tell you, it’s a shocking amount. At the end of each sector these odorous charmers are placed on the piss soaked floor of the toilets and locked in for landing. You can surely imagine what they smell like, our Northern friend Hexham Helen who had worked in a care home, said they smelt like old women’s knickers, and who were we to argue? May the day never arrive when we do actually sniff old women’s knickers. (Or indeed wear them. Is a thong acceptable on an octogenarian? What a thought.) Gash bags! Aren’t we easily distracted? Yes. We can line them with the colourful plastic bin bags to our heart’s content. Somehow they always end up rife and rich with a dubious pale brown liquid in the bottom with soggy slices of lemon and two milk jiggers floating around, like some one has fly tipped in Willie Wonka’s chocolate river. It’s vile, load on the anti-bac before touching them all future Flyers, otherwise later on you’ll pick a bit of dry skin off your lip with an unsuspecting finger, and three hours later you’ll be making your own chocolate river with it’s very own geyser. Oh yeah! And someone told us recently that the fire proof bags were tested for hygiene onboard and it was discovered that the outer cover was coated in syphilis off the toilet floor. And why do we have to tolerate these smelly VD ridden stow-a-ways on board? What makes them so vital? It’s their ability to retard fire! They are fantastic, you put the rubbish in, seal it up tight, and if the whole aircraft gets hot and bright and descends in an unruly flamey way, all the rubbish will be safe! The standard Crew briefing joke goes,
QUESTION: “What would you do if a fire broke out in flight?”
ANSWER: “Get in the gash bag of course!”
Hee hee, gash bags! No, of course it’s because we put the bin bags in a fireproof bag in case the rubbish goes on fire. It can then be contained. Once the Crew we were with on a ferry flight had sack races in brand new, spotless, never been used fire retardant bags, the heavy red cotton ones. Such a special and rare treat, new gash bags are a rarer sight than Lady Gaga in jeans and a t-shirt. We each had to get in one fireproof bag and tie the drawstring round us, thigh or waist depending on your height. We timed each other hopping up and down the aisle and it was piss funny, but what hard work. I only got to row eighteen of the A321 and I was shagged and had to use the seat backs to swing myself along. We laughed and laughed, cheering and jeering each jumper, until Clive’s turn. He took it in to his flouncy head to run in the sack like a penguin in a windsock, which looked hilarious. He got all competitive about beating our feeble timings. He only got to row 5 and then fell and smacked his face off an armrest. His lip swelled up like a baboon’s arse, and suddenly it wasn’t funny any more, he’d knocked one of his front teeth loose. We had to tend him with an ice pack and ibuprofen. When the next Crew changed aircraft with us their Trainer asked what he had done to his mouth. We all held our breaths in case he cracked and told the truth. But no, he came through for us and told her he’d tried it on with a straight guy in a bar, and the bloke had clonked him one. Hero Clive! Who’d have thought he’d have had it in him? Although he did, regularly. The Trainer was so moved she sent him home sick and commended him for turning in injured after such an upsetting and homophobic incident. Honesty is not the best policy to a senior Trainer after a jape that turns sour. She’d have turned sour herself if the truth came out.
D’yer know? Jue’s just reminded me of something we forgot to say in the last book, something that really narked us. While we were writing ‘You F’Coffee Sir?!!!” a book came out about flying that put us Crew in a very bad, drunken, slaggy, uncaring light. It was full of Oooo guess what they do? Oooo blah blah blah. It wasn’t funny at all, I’ve had more fun treading on a up-turned plug. Anyway one of the things that was held up as a shock seeker was Cabin Crew’s joy in tray surfing. Bloody tray surfing, like it’s a crime against aviation! Best be careful what we say or Aviation Interpol will be on to us! Shall I describe it Jue? The readers might not know what we’re on about. Yes, well, tray surfing is done on the take-off of an empty ferry flight. You get a tray, the newspaper one or a slippy deep tray or atlas drawer, you sit at the front of the aisle in it or on it for the take-off roll, and as the aircraft hurtles along the runway and the nose lifts off and the cabin tilts downwards, the angle makes you whizz down the carpet, right to the back galley, if you’re good! It’s exhilarating, thrilling and you can reach speeds of, oh, six or seven miles an hour if you’re lucky! You can tray ski, using the seat backs as sticks, which feels really fast and is only for the accomplished. Or another pleasing variation is to go plaggy-bagging and sit on the dear old blue plastic gash bag and steer with the clenched polythene between your thighs and bunched up skirt. Very exciting and spasm funny. Trouble is all this is quite dangerous, everyone hurts themselves, but so what? We’ve heard about fractures and dislocated kneecaps as a result of tray play, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. You can’t live your life like you are tip toeing through a field of feathers, and believe us tray surfing is worth a purple elbow or two.
Unfortunately it’s very hard for Crew to explain to a company though how they acquired a broken wrist on an empty, incident free flight. Some poor brow beaten Crew have fessed up to tray surfing and got us all in loads of shit. Oh well, there but for the grace of God go Jue and I, they were probably refused pain relief till they blabbed. Very scary airline managers sometimes. Some of them have been chucked out of the Gestapo for being too cruel. That’s the trouble with flying. Got it! Got it in one! The trouble with flying is that it’s like being in a successful rock band on a tour bus but your Dad is the drummer. No matter how cool a Dad he is, he will always cramp your style and keep a watchful eye out. Jue says it’s like being in a Christian rock band, how rock and roll can you be when you have to behave? Christian ROCK BAND! They should drop the rock band part and just say Christian musical group. It’s the equivalent of saying Dinner Lady Devil Worshippers. What is the Christian Rock Band equal to Deep Purple? Light Mauve? Led Zeppelin = Feather Soft Blimp. Twisted Sister = Naughty Niece. Black Sabbath = Peach Sundae! We’re going to have to put some thought in to this!
