Cindy Watson has been flying the Friendly Skies since 1984. We first met on a flight to Hawaii, where I was headed to film a dirty job around the Red Dirt Shirt phenomenon. That would have been late January 2009. Cindy was an excellent flight attendant, and very friendly.
“Oh, I just love your show!” she said. “The way you roll up your sleeves and get right in there! Even when you don’t know what you’re doing!”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m paid to try, not succeed.”
“Ha!” she said. “That’s my new motto!”
I laughed, and Cindy told me about a few of her own dirty jobs.
“Just last week, a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke exploded on the beverage cart. Covered the whole first-class cabin and everybody in it!”
“I guess the pressure affects everything, I said. “First time I opened one of those little containers of half-and-half at altitude, a blast of cream shot across the aisle and landed on somebody’s computer screen. The owner was not amused.”
“Last week,” she said, “someone destroyed the lavatory on a cross-country trip. A clean-up was simply out of the question, so I just locked the door, put up some yellow caution tape, and issued a general apology.”
“Totally understand,” I said. “Last month on an American flight, I walked into an absolute crime scene. The lavatory looked like a porty-potty that a giant had picked up and shaken. The sheer volume of poop on the walls
couldn’t have been an accident.”
Cindy was intrigued. “Tell me more,” she said.
“Well, the worst part wasn’t all the crap, it was the woman waiting to come in after me. She was my seat mate, and we’d been having a nice conversation during the flight.”
“Oh God,” said Cindy. “That’s the worst!”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “The look on her face, when she saw the carnage and smelled the stench is seared into my retina. I told her ‘I wasn’t me,’ but she was not persuaded. We didn’t talk for the rest of the flight.”
Cindy laughed and asked for a selfie. I said sure. Then, ten years later, on a flight out of Denver, I saw her again.
“Remember me,” she said?
“How could I forget? You’re the flight attendant who is paid to try.”
I had retired from Dirty Jobs by then and was hosting Returning the Favor.
“Oh, I just love your new show!” she said. “It’s so nice to meet the neighbors I wish I had!”
“The world is full of nice people,” I said. “I’m having a good time introducing them to America.”
We took another selfie, and she asked if I’d recovered from the lavatory incident.
“Mostly,” I said. “But last week on a Delta flight, I saw a 120lb German Shephard barf in the aisle. I’d never seen a service dog get airsick before.”
“Oh,” she said, “that happens all the time.”
“Not like this,” I said. “This was an extraordinary amount of puke. A thick mound shaped like a football. The flight attendant put on a pair of gloves and pushed the vomit into a garbage bag. Then she got on her hands and knees and scrubbed the carpet with soapy water.”
“That’s a good one,” said Cindy. “Anybody else barf?”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “a couple of people yacked while she was scrubbing the carpet.”
Cindy nodded. “Nothing makes people puke like the sight of other people puking. It’s contagious.”
Six years later, (this morning, in fact,) shortly after collapsing into my usual window seat, a sassy flight attendant with a familiar face plopped down beside me.
“Hey stranger, what happened to your hair?”
“Same thing that happened to yours,” I said.
“At least we still have some!” Cindy said. “Who cares what color it is?”
Cindy asked me what I was doing in DC. “I’m going to The Pentagon,” I said, “to talk about the possibility of national campaign to reinvigorate the skilled trades.”
“Sounds the dirtiest job ever,” she said.
“We’ll see,” I said.
Cindy wished me good luck and asked me about my mom. “I adore that woman,” she said. “How’s she doing?”
“Great,” I said. “Working on her 5th book, keeping a close eye on my Dad, and trying not to act like a celebrity.”
“She’s my favorite guest on your podcast,” she said.
“Mine too,” I said. “If she can fit me in, I’ll try and have her on before Christmas.”
We grabbed another selfie before Cindy went off to do flight attendant things, and a man wearing two masks sat down beside me.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Ganf Noejrftng,” he replied.
And off we went…