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 Holly Winter Living The Life Of Holly Mar 27, 2003 “But aren’t you afraid?” Deborah asked. My surprise wasn’t in the question. Everyone kept asking me the same thing. It amazed me that my friends were forgetting the Holly that they had come to know and love. Um. Of course I think about that stuff. But. I’m not a bottom dweller. “You know.” I said. “I feel really safe.” “What if a terrorist tried to take over your plane?” She shivered. “Couldn’t happen.” I said. “We have special armored plated doors. Nobody can get through those doors. Even the FAA has trouble getting in there, and they have ID’s.” “That’s not funny.” She sighed. “Your job can be dangerous.” “Hey. I have seen scary stuff in every job I’ve ever had. Do you think that scary stuff only happens on airplanes?” I had a student bring a do-it-yourself bomb to my class. It should have Ka-Boomed when the dean reported it found on the walkie-talkie, but the bomb was faulty. I know. Hooray for failure. I had an emotionally disturbed student who wrote me love letters describing how he would saw off my flesh, hammer it to a wall, and watch the blood drip down. I have had parents threaten me for turning them in to social services for beating their children, and had death threats for turning a family in for sexually assaulting their own child. I once had a job where I had to feed live rats to venomous snakes. Now tell me that didn’t come without dangers. And once when I worked as an assistant manager for a Walden Bookstore, the Manager decided to quit smoking. Um. That was a pretty scary day too. Really. I think that working for the airlines may be one of the safest jobs I have ever had. I mean. Security checkpoints. They are really pretty good, especially in this country. On a recent vacation to France, they wouldn’t let me remove my shoes, insisting that their x-ray machines wouldn’t beep from shoes. Um. They didn’t. That might worry me if I were flying overseas a lot. I don’t. On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I found that I got to go through the x-ray machine over and over again till the machines stopped indicating that I had metal on me. I liked it there. Sure. The big antique x- ray machine ate my shoe, but I did eventually get it back. I have found that x-ray machines in our country are really powerful. Those machines beep at everything. (I once tried an experiment: I THOUGHT about metal while walking through the machine. I beeped. Oh. And I forgot to take off my watch.) I think that it is more likely that I will get stabbed at a grocery store than in an airplane. Because even if someone makes it through an x-ray machine, then they have those security guys there ready to do second searches on anyone who looks too excited for having made it through too easily. If you don’t want to get double searched at the airport, you have to walk through like Ralph’s twelve-year-old daughter, who has always wanted to be searched. She has that “Please search me!” look on her face. Nope. Never once has she even been considered. My favorite thing to watch is how they scrutinize the pilots. I have seen more pilots get patted down than anyone else. I know. I mean. Really. If the pilots wanted to hurt the plane, they wouldn’t need a knife, a gun, or a set of nail clippers, they could just switch the up and down buttons. Pilot Ralph calls me on his cell phone every time he is being searched. “Can you believe this? What is it about me?” He asks. “You look scary. Even I’m afraid of you.” “I don’t get it.” He says, exasperated. “Maybe if you wore less metal…” I suggest. “I am wearing only my watch which I already took off. I didn’t beep. They just keep on picking me.” He complains. I don’t feel badly for him. Sometimes he lucks out and gets a beautiful woman searching him. Only then he volunteers for a strip search over dinner. I know. But I can hear her giggling in the background. I know. I know. I have only had one flight where there were any suspicious passengers. Really. Only one flight. There were four sunglassed men who sat in the back of the plane who were a little unsociable, which made one of the flight attendants uncomfortable. She felt that they were behaving “uncharacteristically.” “Holly, Can you check out those guys for me? There is something about them...” “Absolutely.” I said. I had seen those guys in the back and they didn’t look too alarming to me, although they did have bad taste in sunglasses. (Real mobsters wear expensive sunglasses, I’m sure.) They were sitting quietly in their seats, staring strait ahead. I politely collected their garbage. “Do you gentlemen need any help with the free TV’s?” I asked, sweetly. “You mean these things work?” One guy asked. “For free?” His brothers added. The four men quickly removed their sunglasses and started fumbling with the controls on their armrests. I know. If only handing a remote control to a man could solve all the problems in the world. Imagine how much easier life would be. About the author: Holly Winter is a teacher and a writer and a flight attendant living in Denver, Colorado, USA. She can be reached at her website or email: Holly@livingthelifeofholly.com ------------ Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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