'It would be more appealing to work a 13-hour flight than sit in my seat for the duration of it', writes Marisa Mackle
I FEEL GUILTY. My former work colleagues are exhausted, rushing around collecting rubbish and I am just sitting here in the middle of the chaos drinking wine. My instinct is to put down my cool glass of Chardonnay, pick up a rubbish bag and help collect the used napkins and empty plastic glasses that people have carelessly flung on the floor.
But it would be so inappropriate. I have no make-up on and I'm wearing a comfortable tracksuit while they are dressed in snug-fitting Louise Kennedy with perfectly made-up faces and hair beautifully scraped back into chignons. So I turn my attention to the film, instead, hoping it will ease the boredom of having to endure a 13-hour flight strapped to my seat.
As a former "air hostess" I do feel a bit odd going back to my former workplace in civilian clothes only to sit in a designated seat, the same as everybody else. It's hard to relax. When somebody presses their call bell mid-flight, I have an urge to jump up and see what they want.
Most people, when they quit their job, do not return to their old office and sit among their former colleagues having a few drinks while everybody else works. I find it uncomfortable. I don't enjoy holding my empty bottle for half an hour in the hope that somebody in a uniform will relieve me of it. I know where all the bins are, after all, so wouldn't it be easier for me to just stand up and discard it myself?
It would be more appealing to work throughout this 13-hour flight rather than wrigle in my seat for the duration. I'd be far happier selling perfumes, Toblerones and Guinness novelty T-shirts to pass the time, rather than try to concentrate on a book, while being squashed between a mother and her restless baby and a large man hogging the elbow rest and listening to his very loud iPod.
I'm not saying I want to be a flight attendant again, because I don't. I rarely miss the 3.30am wake-up calls and having to make myself up like a cabaret singer in the dead of night. I don't yearn for the Friday night flights to Ibiza, when it isn't unusual to find several needles in the toilets upon landing, nor do I miss the Americans asking me had I ever seen The Quiet Man.
As a writer I now work every day safe in the knowledge that nobody is going to vomit all over my tights, or yell at me because their pre-ordered low fat, low sodium meal hasn't arrived on board. I also know that married men are not going to ask me, with a wink, which hotel I'll be staying in that night. But there are some things I do miss. Like spending a Monday in wintertime by a pool in a luxury LA hotel with a bunch of lively, fun women my own age, when the biggest decision all day will be whether to have a manicure or a pedicure. Or shopping in New York the day after Thanksgiving when the shops slash their prices, and you think that no other job in the world could be this fabulous. Yes, there are good times to be had working for an airline.
But then as this flight to LA continues, I hear the woman with the purple rinse in front ask the attendant what the difference is between the chicken and the beef. She smiles politely and explains that the chicken is chicken and the beef is beef. Then the woman explains that she had pasta on the flight over and her husband had lamb. And the attendant nods as if she is fascinated by this piece of information. And suddenly I'm reminded of the many similar conversations I, too, had to endure on transatlantic flights. Then I remove my rose-tinted glasses, put them in my handbag, and promptly fall asleep.
Marisa Mackle is editor of Party Animal, a collection of short stories about animals by Irish writers, published by Dodder Books (€14.99)