All In A Hard Days Work

Well I realize after posting this next story we can only go downhill. This story is a bit long but most likely be one of the wildest in-flight adventures of my career. I posted this originally on myspace on May 19th 2008. I really didn't have to use much of my own creative writing... this story stands on its on!

May 19, 2008 - Monday

All In A Hard Days Work Current mood: sneaky

Well I must admit every time the words "I've seen it all" slither out of my mouth another commercial flight happens. Tonight probably the most emotional/wild/lifetime moviesque situation happened. Its 2AM and I'm in such bewilderment I can't even sleep. The first thing was OMG my readers (ha… who am I kidding - maybe I'll say the people who feel obligated to read this because they know I'll ask them about it!) will LOVE this one! So without further a due .. My nights unfolding events…

Lets set the story up with the characters: (My entire cabin crew plus 2 extra pilots and a young girl with a small baby who was in need of some help)

The Captain was named Russell he was around 52 but really appeared to be 42. He is from Oklahoma and a true born and raised Oklahoma boy. He has a farm, wild college stories and a pretty fun sense of humor. If your not familiar with the way a "cabin crew" works..the captain pretty much is in total charge of the aircraft and has the final word on how things should go.

The First Officer was Henry. Henry looked to be around 35 with a family and pretty limited social skills. Don't get me wrong he is a nice guy but not to quick with the jokes or adding wit or fun to the crew. He is a man who comes to work does his job …maybe laughs a little along the way… and goes home and plays the father/husband role. Which is great but he seemed to be a little sheltered. He is definitely not one to tip his hat into any sort of drama.

The new flight attendant is a nice girl. Proudly its Sue's 3rd trip ever. Sue is 25 with a sweet personality, from Chicago and a bit of a "funky monkey." She reminds me a little of Lisa Loeb. Remember her funky hair with glasses? She fits that pretty much. She is good (from what I could tell) at her "stewardess skills" but still a total newbie. Sue is a huge fan of the 80's with a few tattoos to prove it. (plus she carried this really cute canvas bag that was a bit silly…but I must say adorable)

The peculiar flight attendant is quite the mystery. His name is Phan and he reminds me of a Buddhist Monk. He is a short man with a shiny bald head. He is a nice guy but a bit puzzling. He has been flying only a year so he still isn't use to the atypical situations that occur in-flight. I feel like he could offer me mediation tips and tons of old Ancient wisdom (even though he is probably only 35) - Oh god was that mean and so stereotypical? I hate to stereotype but he fit's that whole 'Buddhist Monk" thought to a tee. He probably is nothing like I think.


The Express jet captain looks to be around 48 and that he spent many years living in south Florida (aka tan leathery skin). He drinks scotch has good stories and gray hair. He and his first officer are flying us to get back to their home in Nashville. His name by the way is Randy.

The express jet first officer is pretty cute. He looks like a prep school graduate with southern charm and genuine interest in enjoying whatever comes his way. He drinks miller light and seems to be a good natured guy. If I were guessing I'd say he is 27 although he still has a baby face. Austin (his name) had been flying a 36 year old billionaire around all day on a private leer jet with Randy. They had NO idea what they were getting into boarding our flight.

THE CRISIS GIRL was a lost soul. She reminds me physically of Amy Whinehouse. She was a skinny white girl probably 5'2, 90 pounds . She had three little heart tattoos on her wrist and was wearing cut off blue jean shorts with a tank top. Her hair was jet black and shoulder length. She had a cute hair style and her makeup was actually done quite tasteful. Even though her body was so small and fragile her face was filled out. She looked to be around 18ish (I hope she was at least that old) and the type of girl who just only a few years ago was on a dance team at high school or was playing spin the bottle at a random teenage house party. She had an innocence look about her and still some sort of sparkle even though what was going on in her life was far from "sparkle." A few of her traits revealed she had been down a rigid road. Beside in her in the seat was a 7 month old baby girl. Mindy and her baby were on a flight that they were hoping would change their life.

So that's the players in the story I'm going to account. I really needed you to have a good feel of all the involved.

We take off from Miami and are in route to Philadelphia. I had just finished cabin service and started chit chatting with Henry and Austin. They were talking about their crazy day flying this young hot-shot around and the many trials that come with servicing the ultra-rich. It was only about 30 minutes into the flight when Sue came up the aisle and said she needed to speak with me in the front galley right away. Crap what now? The last flight we had a girl pee all on the seat then had to deal with the woman behind the girl getting pee on her shoes and feet. Please no more bowel movements gone wrong!! Please!!

She proceeds to tell me there is a young girl (aka crisis girl) in the back crying and needing help leaving the airport. Sue is still VERY new and doesn't really know what she is asking us for so she asks me to go talk to her. I of course say sure and head on to the back of the airplane to meet Mindy and take a seat beside her on the airplane.

She looks at me with these scared eyes and says she can't leave the airport terminal. She is wanting to know if there is another way to get outside without having to pass through the main passenger exit. She says she is in a bad situation and needs help. Then the tears start falling. She says she can't leave the terminal. I tell her I wasn't sure that she could exit any other way but the main exit and at that point told her she didn't have to tell me what was going on but I did offer a security escort if she was scared of something or someone.

While trying to think up some kind of help for her in this problem I really didn't know anything about she busts out with "I WAS TRADED!" "I was traded and I'm so scared." Oh God, I'm thinking traded… traded…. What in the world is this girl talking about? About that time her baby starts to wake up and she puts her fragile hand on her stomach and the little girl just coo's and goes back to sleep.

She is like a volcano erupting with tears now and she says she is going to meet her new pimp. So you can imagine my eyes at this point - I said a Real Pimp?? (Like she was talking about a fake one) She said yes that she was traded from the main Miami Pimp to one in Philly and she had changed her mind about it. Oh dear lord I really don't want to know anymore…I just want to mix a few drinks and make sure people have their seat belts on!! Ok - not really I was dying for this chance at some crazy pimp and ho drama. I told her let me talk to the crew and see what kind of "Pimp Evasion Plan" we can come up with.

I scurry off to the back galley and my crew members just see that look on my face like "You'll NEVER believe this one!!!" They say in unison "WHAT!!!??????" I fill them in on the story and they are dying. First of all its incredibly sad. I may be cracking jokes now but at the time I was beginning to get very emotional about the whole crisis. I went up to the two pilots we had as passengers and asked them about the layout of the airport. I filled them in on the whole story and they agreed to help in any way they could. I also went into the cockpit to seek some help. Russell our captain was jumping at the chance to help and Henry looked shell-shocked. Russell said we can try to talk our ground agent in to escorting her down through the airport from the underground so she wouldn't have to use the main exit. We all know its pretty much illegal but we were going to try for it.

I go back to Mindy and she is still crying. She says her baby has so many health issues and she doesn't have insurance or any money to help her. Her pimps give her plenty of money and take care of health bills so she is pretty much under their control. They bought her plane ticket and they had a complete description of her and all she knew that he was a black male and would have a suit on and carrying a pimp cane (Ok jk about the suit and cane part….) but she had never seen him before. She keeps saying how she doesn't want to live the life of one of the pimps girls that she wants out. She begs for help.

At this time me and my entire crew (plus the two extra pilots) are totally committed. We are all feeling if we can help this girl escape this pimp MAYBE she will start a new life for herself and her baby. I start crying while talking with her because there is no denying how sad the whole situation is. It was so dramatic! Meanwhile we have customers wanting drinks and snacks when our whole crew is planning "Operation Pimp Escape."

We land in Philly and the 50 passengers we were carrying all exit the aircraft. She is waiting on the airplane. I jump in the jet way and beg our agent to help us. Its hard to go into the whole story just standing there and he is pretty much non-compliant with every request I'm making. Russell climbs out of the cockpit and goes in the jet way to seek help as well for her. The agent blew him off and said he couldn't escort her anywhere and that we couldn't pull her bags from going on the conveyor belt. The captain said "bull shit" and ran down to the ramp to get her bags. I had a description of her bags ready. We had came up with the plan that if she couldn't get escorted by an airport employee down under the airport she could sit inside security (where no pimps…or persons who do not hold a valid boarding document are not allowed) and wait a few hours. Hopefully the pimp would give up and leave. I had fixed her a bag full of snacks/water/ and juice ready for the wait. We figured we could send her bags straight to the baggage service office so the pimp wouldn't see them on the belt and know she made the flight.

She had 3 bags. A pink camo roller bag (when asked what was inside she said makeup/heels/ and some "clubbing clothes") a black duffel bag with baby supplies and a pink car seat. She had everything to her name with her in those bags. One black duffel bag with her babies things…..that was all she owned.

Operation Pimp Escape was in full swing until she runs up the airplane saying "The Pimp isn't here!!" A few passengers who were a little late deplaning just looked at all of us like we were crazy. I said "Great! How do you know??" She said she borrowed another passengers phone and pretended to be another girl. He told her he was on his way. She had said she called a friend to come get her. At this point thinking we have to act fast! I tell the agent to radio-ramp and tell Russell (who is down there looking for her bags) to come back up and let the bags go. Of course the agent doesn't do it so I open the forward galley service door and try to yell over jet engines to Russell who is on the ramp beside the airplane. I finally after almost losing my voice get it to him that the bags are good to stay on the belt. Yes, if you were on the ground in Philly that was me yelling "The PIMP ISN'T HERE!! LEAVE HER BAGS!"

She starts heading up the jet way and I tell her I will help her. I grab the ho's baby and take off. Here I go running in the airport with a small baby alongside a prostitute. She seems so excited she may really get to leave without having to go with him. We run the long terminal and finally get outside security. In my head I'm thinking… " Look for scary guy with big pimp suit on and a cane….If I see him throw baby to the mom and run for the cops!" I mean who knows what pimps will do to people trying to un-foil their plans. I'm dealing with danger now and I must say I was getting a little rush. No pimp in sight so she takes her baby girl and I wait for my crew who is
coming with my bags. Just when we think its all over…..

We get to the baggage carousal where we have to drop off our liquor sales reports and money when we see Mindy hiding around a pole. Then I see Austin (the passenger pilot we had onboard) peculiarly walking to the baggage carousal. I knew he didn't check bags and I walked beside him and he whispered out of the side of his mouth that the pimp was right around the corner and he was going to get her bags and help her get out without the pimp seeing her. (Later on I found out that Austin and Randy saw her hiding and told her they would help her) Randy and Austin had a private van company picking them up and said they would put her in there they just had to sneak her off past the pimp.

The pimp was not what I expected. I saw him and my stomach turned. I kept thinking as long as he doesn't see her this will be ok. He was a short black guy and he had on black pants with a white shirt on. As he got closer to us I could see it had "IHOP" on the side of it. Wow a pimp working at IHOP. I know the economy is bad but good grief I didn't figure our pimp was an IHOP worker too! This is ruining all my visions of what REAL pimps look like! I need crazy suit AND A CANE!! While trying to keep Mindy hidden my crew all sees at the same time the pimp
sees her.

You can only guess what I do next… CRY. Austin starts cussing under his breath and Russell our captain goes into captain mode. I am telling our whole crew we can't let this happen to her. God only knows what she will have to do and what her baby might go through with these people. I kept saying WE CAN'T LET HIS HAPPEN! Russell says lets call security - at this point the pimp has got one of her bags off the carousal and we can bust him for trying to "steal" it. At least that would be enough time to sneak her away while he was in question. The pimp ends up getting two of her bags and takes them outside. While the pimp is outside Randy yells to Russell to grab Mindy and the baby and sneak them out the side door. So there goes our captain and Mindy running out the side door while I keep a watch on the pimps location. I'm freaking out at this point. I am seriously thinking "OMG we are all going to walk outside and his "pimp posse" is going to straight up whack us!" I figure…Pimps don't play around!

We get Mindy in the van (the van driver was like "Who is this girl???" and Randy yells "A ho in need of help just go with it!") I laugh but then we see the pimp looking for Mindy from inside the window. Russell decides to create a small diversion and while doing that he gets the pimp to follow him down away from the windows towards the baggage room. I see he is diverting him and he signals behind his back to get her out of here. I run back outside and yell at Austin to grab her bags where he had left them and for them to scram.

So picture this - I'm in full flight attendant uniform running outside the airport where tons of cars and passengers are loading and unloading "Get her bags - He is being distracted!!" "Yall take off - HURRY - GO!" Seriously they didn't teach me this stuff in flight attendant training.

I run to the van and we are about to shut the door when Mindy says "Where is my friend??" We are like Friend? What Friend? She says her friend who just left IHOP to come pick her up. Austin and Randy both yell "SHIT!" By this time I'm really letting go of my dream (that I had dreamed up over the past 30 minutes of running around fighting street crime in the airport) of becoming a CSI. I run back inside for the 30th time and find our captain Russell. He was like "I know wrong pimp" before I could even say anything. We grab Mister IHOP and put him in the van too. Randy throws me his card and says to call if anything else comes up with this.

They speed off and Operation Pimp Escape was complete. Now my crew of 5 were all left standing in the terminal saying …."If that wasn't the pimp….I wonder where the REAL one is??" We are all by this time ready to leave the airport and hope the pimp wasn't furtively sneaking around watching us. I get all frantic that he saw what we did and is going to follow us. We walk outside and we are all waiting for some old tricked out caddy to come by with real dark windows…see a window roll down and a pistol come out aiming at us. Then we see some pimp daddy jump out of the car surrounded by smoke and carrying the infamous pimp cane telling us that we have a death wish for messing with his ho. You can relax it didn't happen. Although we did quickly jump in the crew van and sat in silence for about 4 minutes. Then we hear Russell say "In my 25 years of flying… I have never" then we all bust out laughing and start with the pimp and ho jokes that still haven't stopped.

I later called Randy and he said he dropped Mindy her baby and the IHOP friend off at his car and the drove away. He said Mindy couldn't believe how we all tried to help her and that she was going to find her mom. Well all just have to hope MAYBE that was her break from the life on the streets. We did everything we could to help her. I promised Randy and Austin if they ever wanted to fly our airline again the entertainment would be a little more PG the next time and that it wouldn't call for hiding ho's and running from pimps ever again. They laughed and they were happy to have helped her.

Looking back I can't ever tell you how crazy it was. My job is filled with different responsibilities and tasks but never would I have guessed I would be saving ho's from the street. That's what I love about my job. One flight your rubbing elbows with movie stars and the next flight your helping your passengers run from their pimps.

Telling the tales is one of the best parts as well. Obviously I've changed all names and locations to protect myself from a pimp gang that might have my crews name on their hit list.

So like always I'm looking for the moral of my story and only one thing comes to mind…
Three 6 Mafia said it best.....

"I guess it is truly ....HARD OUT THERE FOR A PIMP!"