Stewardesses and Their Discontents

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

I am racist against stewardesses. I had thought I was on their side in the fight against entitlement—that guy who told all y’all to fuck off before hopping the inflatable slide to the tarmac? Instant folk hero of my heart! And then I flew somewhere.

On each leg of my journey, I encountered shitty air-waitresses being racist, classist, power-mad dicks. I almost even said something, once, but I didn’t, because they have the power to have me arrested, and I do not like jail.

Air-Waitress No. 1

She gave me an excited little side-eye when the handsome, blond young Spaniard sat down next to me in our exit row. Soon, she was kneeling at his knees, her bosoms pressed together as she touched his knees. He was indeed pretty, but not my type. If I’d had to choose, I would have picked the handsome young black man from the Virgin Islands who completed our row’s threesome; he seemed very quiet and sweet, but her bosoms were quite clearly not for his benefit. (She also told the Spanish guy where she and the other stews would be staying. Brassy lady!)

Soon everyone within a few rows was snickering, and I couldn’t figure out why. The stew had pulled out a small canister of deodorant spray and was showily spraying it here and there, giggling herself and tossing her head like a sexy colt. Was it me? I was wearing my orange cashmere sweater of sadness, and it does not breathe. Perhaps someone had taken a largeish poo in the lav, which was right in front of us. I determined not to have stomach troubles for the duration of the flight. But no, that wasn’t it at all!

Instead, it was the tall, magnificent African man a couple of rows behind us, a man maybe in his fifties or sixties, dressed in beautiful sky-blue robes. I had seen him in the security line earlier, and had made sure to smile, because I was pretty sure people were going to be awful to him, and lo! Apparently, he had body odor (I got an occasional whiff; it was strong but it was not rancid, and it was far less offensive than what you would smell any day at Casa My House), and the flight attendant just could not make fun of it enough! I’m still not really over it, and I think that might have been a week ago, and I can’t figure out if I have been overreacting this whole time, because I feel like that stewardess was being really fucking racist, and if she wasn’t being racist, she was still being extraordinarily insensitive, holding a lone stranger up for ridicule by the ingroup (grad school term). Thoughts, peoples? Totally racist, or just a juvenile dick? Racist, right? RIGHT?

Air-Waitress No. 2

Those of us sad souls still waiting to board at the very end all had to check our luggage at the gate; there was no overhead compartment left for us and our meager carry-ons. But when we got on, at last, a man was stowing his bag in first class—a flight attendant had told him to do so. And that’s when Air-Waitress No. 2 went ballistic, going on and on, for probably two minutes and in such a very affronted tone, about what a slap in the face this was to any first-class passenger who would then find there was no more room for his far-more-precious baggage. “I just really don’t think a first-class passenger should have to ...” What, check his bags, like the rest of us just did? Oh, the fucking HORROR. And as she went on and on about the indignity to this mythical first-class passenger (we were the last people on), I really wanted to say something, because we’re all passengers, lady, fuck you, but again: jail. But I did tell another passenger about it later, and she was duly offended as well, before I realized the waitress was right behind us. Good.

Air-Waitress No. 3

They’d had to swap out planes—a rumor about ours lacking pressurization, which is surely necessary—and so it was some hours before we got onto my second plane of the day. I was tired. About an hour into the flight, I went back to the galley and asked if I could buy a drink. The flight attendant yelled at me that they had not yet started their beverage service. Half an hour later, they did. Half an hour after that, they got to me. This is a very small thing in our universe, of course I know this, but she was so snippy and brusque and I felt like a scolded child, and I went back to my seat and sat very still and embarrassed in its little constraints. Sometime later, the guy in front of me politely asked her for a receipt for his drink, and this is what she yelled at him: “I am tired, and right now I need a break!” Which, clearly, and eventually she did come back and give him his receipt. So ... I don’t know. It could definitely be the airline’s fault; she could be overworked to hell and back for like $13,000 a year. Or it might be that flight attendants post-9/11 have become real power-mad assholes? Again, it is all a mystery!

The Moral of the Story

And so I finished all my flights, and had a big fight with my boyfriend when he picked me up from the airport, and my magnificent week in New Orleans (which maybe I will tell you about next week? First things first!) was all just pummeled by this ghastly air travel and these mean stewardesses, and I was so angry! My housekeeper, Berta, was there when I got home (because of course despite being only marginally employed, I still have my house cleaned twice a month, for the excellent reason that I do not want to), and I laid myself out on my fainting couch and told her and her children, Anna and Robert, all about the terrible stewardesses, and how I knew there were worse things in the world, terrible poverty and sadness, I knew, really, but Jesus they could really ruin your whole day!

And Berta sat in the pink Deco chair across from me, and she and her kids tsked about the racist stewardess and the mean one and the classist one, and then Berta told me about her four-month trip to El Salvador, from which she’d just returned. Robert and Anna had taken over while she was gone and done a ridiculously marvelous job, which I made sure to tell her; in addition it was Anna, a young woman of 21, who had saved up her housecleaning money to send Berta there, to get surgery on her knee, but Berta never did. Instead the money went to her father’s hospitalization, and she was with him when he died. But the hospitals, for which they paid $7 or $9 a day, were terrible, and because they were so underpaid, the doctors and nurses did not care to do a damn thing, and she was so angry at the doctors and nurses who refused to so much as bring a bedpan (but you were not allowed to bring the bedpan yourself), and so everyone smelled of urine, and no one would help, and a doctor actually laughed when Berta’s father did not recognize her sister, and both she and her sister had very much wanted to punch that doctor in the face, but of course they did not punch the doctor in the face.

And then she told us about the terrible crime in El Salvador, how even if your car did not have AC, you still kept the windows rolled up whenever you drove anywhere, because the gang members who were deported from here brought MS to San Salvador, and MS is the scariest gang of all the gangs, they will behead you for sure, because why not, what does someone’s head matter? Berta has been here almost 30 years, since she was a young woman in her twenties, and Salvador is no longer her home. She never wants to go back, ever again. Also, people there eat hardly any food, ever, so skinny, so poor.

And her children and I listened to her stories, and we were quiet a few moments. And then I said, “Have I mentioned I met some really mean flight attendants? Boy, they can really ruin your whole day!”

And Berta and her kids laughed and laughed, because of how I am hilarious.

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