Monday, September 18, 2006

Monotone

“She just snapped, like a pencil, dashing around in the plane in an erratic manner.”, “It was just plain crazy, and we had to make sure everyone’s ok. With what she did we thought we would die then and there. It was crazy. Thank God the captain came to the rescue”, “For 10 years she was never like this. In fact, she never even showed any sign of stress or erratic behavior. It just happened”
Standing outside is the most popular stewardess, as described by a few conversations above. She saw her fellow colleagues go inside and leave, giving her a frightened look as if she’s a grizzly bear or a lawyer who has had a bad day. She’s a mess and she knows going in there next will not help her at any point.
It just comes to a point where you have to face things as they are and accept it, bringing in the point on why it happened.
This is one of those situations where you wish to have been able to evade.
Staring intently on her shoes and wondering what to say next, wishing that an earthquake were to postpone her meeting won’t happen soon, even if she did stomp the ground real hard, making her look more insane as what she already looks like.
She gets up off her seat and stares on the floor while walking. It was noticed though, that the floor is kept clean. The janitor did an amazing job, and has always been doing an amazing job. Apparently, only people in trouble or have lost something realize this more than the rest. People who lost their contacts would have realized this had they had better vision, as to that they have lost their contacts, everything is a blur.
She steps towards the door to twist the doorknob.
More on what is happening in there after a few moments. As what is noticed, she must have done something really bad to have quite an introduction above. Here’s what happened that fateful day on a busy domestic morning flight.
She snapped.
But more specifically, 20 minutes after take off with the seatbelt sign turned off. She made her last announcement to the passengers on airline safety and was ready to push the tray. Nothing extraordinary happened and everyone was busy as usual. There were no hostilities or crying babies. In 7 minutes she will be pushing the cart back to the storage and get the next cart to serve the next batch. As usual, chicken seems to be a popular choice. On her way back though, she has decided that she has had enough of the plane and needed some fresh air, and tried her might to open the airline door. As her frantic tries gets her screaming and yelping, her colleagues help push her off the door, causing them to let go the food cart they were holding and getting it to crash to one of the passengers who just came out of the toilet, only to decide it might actually be a better idea to go back inside and clean up. Maybe even wait a while until everything settles down and take the cart off the toilet door. The stewardess then tried to go towards the front and maybe fly the plane off course to another area, any area for that matter. This was when the captain came out and put her on the chair, got her tied up and raised his voice, telling her to snap off it. She just ended crying all the way back to their destination. Everyone was shaken, and the business class passenger she is now seated beside is feeling rather uncomfortable with the arrangement of him having to sit beside her all throughout the flight. The whole commotion did cause some turbulence and got the plane to jerk up and down only once. This was enough to get the food to experience zero gravity for a moment, and choose their landing, which was usually on expensive clothing and laptops.
While the airline is now handling lawsuits and heavy cleaning of the airplane, they have decided to try to grill the hell out of the stewardess, who has caused all the mess, as she is now entering the room.
After being read the incident in a more polite and politically correct manner, she was asked one simple question. “What the fuck happened to you up there?”
To which she gave the following monologue.
“I have always watched airplanes on TV with happy stewardesses and happy passengers. I dreamt of seeing the world by being an airline stewardess and make people happy. And truth be told, I did get those. But who knew what was happening behind the curtain? The review of passengers on the plane, the repetitive review of airline safety, and passing the food, it just happens 3 times a day for the past 10 years.”
“I start off by reading the passenger roster and arranging appropriate food for appropriate diets, if requested. We have to prepare for special concerns accordingly. Once in the plane and everyone is reminded to fasten their seatbelts, the door is closed and the plane will start to move. I will then go in front and demonstrate safety tips while playing the video of the same damn thing by inserting the same tape to the same recorder. After the demonstration and announcement, I sit on my chair and await for the seatbelt sign to go off. Then we pass the food to everyone in the plane and get it back later on. There will be another announcement and check on passengers to ensure they’re following the fasten seatbelt sign. It is then that I make another announcement and greet them off the plane with a smile, knowing that there is another flight I have to prepare for.”
“It drove me nuts doing it over and over again. I look at the roster and see the same names. They all fly the plane like they ride the bus, it is a part of their schedule to their next meeting. It is no longer a wonder or awe for them, it is all taken for granted.”
“You do understand that there is a need for human being to develop and evolve through their own lifetime. In this course of time, we need to develop ourselves in some way, otherwise, we feel we have lost our value. The mind needs to evolve and develop. It needs to breathe and run free, it has to be creative once in a while. For some, it will just show this need out of nowhere. When this happens, it will nag and nag and nag. It will get bored and it will make decisions beyond what the board of directors are telling it inside. It then gets extreme to get itself to be free. It will want to make itself heard, even if the situation deemed would be considered totally irrational and dangerous. It needs to vent off steam.”
“At that point, out of nowhere, was a meltdown inside me, the warning signs might have been lighting and beeping but it was too weak for me to notice. I just had to let it off”
“No one on the bloody plane caused any commotion, no one brought a crying baby, or a racist neo-nazi. There have been no fights to stop or no terrorist to beat up. I was losing my significance to everyone’s eyes.”
“In that I seeked refuge in the extreme of all actions, and to this as much as I regret, I couldn’t correct that mistake, I am sorry.”
The psychiatrist looked at her and said nothing for the past 10 minutes. The mirror behind her had people who said nothing either, until a male executive quipped, “I needed to vent off my steam today so I did something different, I came to work today with no underwear”.
He did get sued for sexual harassment as the rest of the people in that little room were women. He also had a more spacious work area as most of the cubicle in his immediate area has been deserted by everyone.
The stewardess found interest in him and his problem and decided to marry him, even if his choice was not as extreme, it was plain stupid anyway. He found that after what he said, she was the only person remaining willing to talk to him or even show any sign of interest.
For the airline company, well, who knows, and at this point, who cares.

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