Post #37

Meanderings. More observations from MSP.

Here I sit at the end of the F Concourse.

Ha. F. That’s funny. 

While working on Post #36 I had the distinct displeasure of overhearing part of a conversation between a group of FAs about 20 feet away.

Yes, hearing is one of my super powers.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard of these conversations. It’ also not the first time I’ve personally overheard them. They go something like this:

FA #1: Who do these people think they are?!

FA #XXX: I know, don’t they know we’re in the middle of a pandemic? I’m so sick of their attitudes. They constantly come up with ways and reasons to not comply with every Covid rule we have for them.

FA #1: I wish we could fine them all. They just make me so angry.

They are, of course, talking about the passengers they serve during flight. The passengers who, before Covid, still broke as many rules as they could get away with. Staying seated and buckeled during flight even when the seatbelt sign was off? Cell phones in airplane mode? No video calling? No seat stealing? Carry-ons the size of full suitcases? Standing up before parked at the gate? Rushing the front of the plane just to deplane as fast as possible?

The list goes on and on. Regular flyers couldn’t stand those kind of fellow passengers back in the day either. But now something has changed. FAs are scared of their own Covidless shadow, drunk on their own power (let’s face it, they’re one of the “hero” groups), and intolerant of anyone who does anything less than their arbitrary standard of demands.

Passengers cannot have alcohol they personally brought on the plane.

Passengers are threatened with criminal and civil legal action in every announcement.

Passengers are threatened with deplaning and being put on that airline’s no-fly list.

Passengers are instructed to never take their mask down when speaking with an FA during flight. Order with your fingers. Talk loud so as to better communicate your drink or snack order, or on some airlines use finger numbers to order your drink.

Upon boarding take a sanitary wipe packet in your already full hands so you can wipe down your seat area which was supposedly already cleaned.

Don’t put the spent wipe in the seat back.

Upon deplaning keep your mask up as you walk uncomfortably past the lead FA and Pilot who may or may not be thanking you sarcastically for flying. How would you know either way? You can’t see their face.

Is my shoelace untied? Is that now a Federal crime? I consistently put my messenger bag on my lap during taxi, will I be arrested for that?

FAs have cooked their own goose. They’ve made their own bed. In my opinion they are on the same level as some nurses and doctors I’ve heard complain about patient “bad behavior”. Newsflash, it isn’t the patients who are crazy, it’s the medical providers. It isn’t the passengers who are being ridiculous, it’s the FAs. And I think its high time for folks to seriously question why they allow, and pay for, such a stuck-up group of paid Karens to boss them around? Is this the torturer/torturee scenario where a crust of bread is worth newfound respect from the person in constant pain?

It is the unique civic duty of the American Citizen to question authority. FAs, you are only King George in the respect that I am part of the revolution. You do not have absolute power and I will not pretend to give it. Our rights do not end when a plane is boarded. The passenger “safety” you are there to provide has nothing to do with health aside from cleaning vomit, helping a sick passenger off the toilet, and asking if there’s a doctor on the plane. You are nothing more than a common citizen doing a job. I know my place. You’d better learn yours.