** Layout of seating on L1011 to help get a feel for today’s post. “D-zone” is on the far right in this picture.
PART II: THINGS THAT “MAYBE” SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED…
I grew up fast and that naïve middle class girl from an affluent Chicago suburb got herself educated fast. College? Ha! Now I was learning!!
My Mom got cancer and I moved home to help. I needed a schedule I could depend on so I transferred my “home base” from Chicago where I lived to New Orleans. I still lived in Chicago, but commuted to work in New Orleans because I had better seniority there and could hold a regular schedule. That meant that while business professionals were boarding the train to commute into the city to go to work, I would drive out to O’Hare and fly down to New Orleans to go to work. It’s a thing.
The least desirable trip, it turned out, which is what I got, was the 3-day trip to San Juan. My gosh, this sounds great! It was on our big L-1011, and beaches and all. Oh boy!
I soon learned that the mosquito was the state bird and if you didn’t close all the drains in your room the minute you got there, the cockroaches would take over and be throwing a party and ordering room service within hours. Oh yes, there was plenty of natural beauty and the people were warm and I learned to eat papaya with a squeeze of lime and the coffee was sublime. It was just… educational.
As was my first boarding process when I came back through “D-zone” (the 4th, and most aft section of the 4 section aircraft) and opened an overhead bin to assist with a bag and chickens flew out. The bag fit, but much to my chagrin, there were now chickens and roosters clacking in the aisles with no apparent seat assignments.
We took a delay.
A few weeks later I was working a beverage cart in “C-zone,” and encountered a lengthy line. I asked a colleague what might be the problem, and she advised that a few of the lavs (lavatories) were blocked off. It still seemed like a long way from the lavs which are at the very back of D-zone. I worked my way back through a line only to find that it ended at the divider between C-zone and D-zone that housed closets with curtains for hanging bags. The line stopped there. The smell did not. It seems our resourceful guests had designated the closets as “Porta-Potties” and were having their way with them.
Upon landing, the plane was taken out of service for sanitizing.
Delay.
Each time I encountered one of these events I thought surely I must have seen it all. My next story will help you understand why I slowly began to realize that I would never see it all. Nor did I really want to. You just can’t unsee a lot of that.
See you next time!
Whitefish Dog and Home 