How I met your father
By Sharla Gorder
It’s so hard to get grown-ups to behave. Fortunately, at this point in my life, it’s not in my job description. But once upon a time, it was.
I had help, of course — 14 or so other flight attendants and three pilots. Still, we were woefully outnumbered, and trapped as we were in a steel tube hurtling through space, we couldn’t call for reinforcements.
For the most part, back then (the ’80s), folks behaved pretty well on airplanes (unlike today!). But there were times when I really felt like the traveling public could use a little guidance, a user manual of sorts, a tutorial to help them learn to “passenger” appropriately.
To be honest, there was really just one passenger in all those years of flying for Pan Am and United, that I passionately felt needed coaching. Yes, I needed him to behave on the plane, but more importantly, I needed him to fall in love with me.
Ted and I met 36 years ago on flight 815 from Los Angeles to Sydney. I joke that our first date was 15 hours long and we had 400 chaperones. I had never, in my life, flirted for so long without a drink in my hand. But it’s not what happened aloft that cinched the deal. It’s what happened the next day. When we landed, Ted continued on his connecting flight to Melbourne, and I headed to my layover hotel in Sydney. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and I wanted to make sure he was thinking about me.
The thing that had charmed me so much about Ted was (and still is) his propensity to laugh and to make me laugh. So, I decided to attempt to amuse him from afar.
I would send him a fax — yes, a fax (email wasn’t yet a thing). For two days, holed up in my Sydney hotel room, I devised a “document” and formatted it to look like an official airline communiqué, entitled “UAL Passenger Rules and Regulations, Series 1.” I faxed it to his office in Melbourne.
The 17-point “document” offered invaluable information on how to comport oneself in business class on those long trans-Pacific flights, with tips on all things flight-related. Here are a few highlights:
• On your flight attendant crew: Recognize and obsequiously defer to our omnipotence aboard the aircraft. Don’t let the sensible shoes and aprons fool you into imagining that we are here to serve you. Our primary goal is to invoke compliance.
• On jump seats: Do not, under any circumstance occupy a flight attendant jump seat. This is the ultimate transgression. Our jump seats are our thrones, and it is advisable not to even gaze upon them. Avert thine eyes.
• On galleys: Likewise, galleys are hallowed ground, to be inhabited solely by FAs and an occasional invited guest, usually the object of a FA flirtation. (How to know if you are being flirted with: The FA speaks to you in complete sentences and puts back on her pumps.)
• On ordering a cocktail: When a FA solicits your drink order and you are merrily plugged into the audio system, do not remove your glasses in order to better hear the FA’s query, as this has never been shown to improve your auditory capacity. Along the same lines, abruptly shouting your request (to be heard over the symphony only you are privy to) is quite unnecessary and may indeed awaken the pilots.
• On seconds: When asked if you would like another cup of coffee, it is not polite to wordlessly point to the inside of your cup. We are trained professionals and will not under any circumstances pour it on your salad.
• On using the FA call button: Don’t.
• On sleeping with your mouth open and body strangely contorted: This is acceptable in that it provides a little late-night entertainment for the crew. Loud, unmetered snoring and indiscriminate drooling, however, are strictly prohibited.
• On profane complaining and whining: Pretend you cannot hear us in the galley.
• On preparing for landing: When the pilot announces that we are making our final approach for landing, do not anxiously inquire into the status of implied previous approaches. Airline terminology can be confusing.
Suffice it to say, I made him laugh. 36 years later, he’s still laughing.
(And behaving beautifully, I might add.)
