Flight Frenzy

"Hold it young man," June said when she noticed the object in the kid's hand. "That isn't going to fit in the over head." June hated it when the luggage checkers failed to stop someone from bring a too large carry-on on the plane. Once a man brought his bass violin on board, and it was seriously twice the size of the over head compartment. He wouldn't have it put with the rest of the luggage because didn't want to take the chances of it getting damaged. He ended up paying full price for another ticket and strapping it onto the seat next to him.

"But it will fit." The boy took his plastic light saber and pushed the tip of it with his hand. The plastic layers easily folded into each other until all that was left was the black and silver handle. "See?" The boy looked proud of himself for tricking the flight attendant.

"Fine, you may take it with you." June didn't think one plastic light saber could do any harm. June had more important things to worry about.

June wasn't looking forward to this flight at all. It was going to be an eight hour flight and she had been assigned the job of overseeing the trainee. Normally working with trainee wasn't too bad because all you had to do was show a wannabe-FA the ropes of the most fun job in the universe. However, Holly, the trainee June was to have charge over, was not in the least bit pleasant to work with. At least that's what she had heard. June hadn't helped with Holly's training before, but many of her co-workers had. They all had horror stories of how their flight with Holly had gone sour. They told June how Holly

never listened, she thought she knew everything better than everyone else, and she was a klutz.

"That's right, it goes in the top right cabinet," June said to Holly with a smile. Holly seemed to be doing everything just fine so far, maybe the other flight attendants had mistaken Holly for a different trainee. Either that or Holly had finally decided to start listening. The flight was proving to be a lot more relaxed than June had imagined, because of Holly and because Ashley and Alice, the other two FA's, were currently serving the meals. Serving the food was one of the most hated jobs among flight attendants because of all the complaining the passengers did. However, it was also one of the only jobs you could do with another person. Ashley and Alice were friends, so they had volunteered for the task.

"Oh no! June, I left my lucky pin in my suitcase." Holly gasped. As she jumped up and dashed out of the galley her long blond pony-tail whipped the stale airplane air.

"Wait! Holly, don't go into the aisle until Ash and Alice get back." June called after Holly, but it was too late.

CRASH When June reached the location of the noise, Ashley and Alice lay motionless in the middle of the aisle while Holly stood next to them.

"Oops." said Holly. She had a stricken look across her face as she looked up waiting for Holly to blow up at her. It seemed she had smacked into their food cart which had then hit the poor victims from behind. June scowled at Holly and checked the

unconscious flight attendants' vitals. They were still breathing, but it didn't look like they were going to wake up any time soon.

"Oh, June, I'm so sorry. I was trying so hard not to do anything wrong," Holly started ringing her pony-tail with her sweaty hands while biting her lower lip. She looked as if she might cry.

Junes face softened a little. She felt bad for Holly. It must be horrible having to apologize for ruining things on every flight she goes on. "Don't worry, Holly. It's not the end of the world. Come help me move Ash and Alice to a more comfortable place. There are some empty seats near the rear of the plane."

After June finished up serving the in-flight meals to the passengers that had remained, she started to regret being so nice to Holly. The passenger had been horrible. They had complained about their food, they had played with their food, they thrown their food at each other, and they had talked about sci-fi movies while ignoring their food. Hardly anyone ate anything. What a waste! It didn't seem fair that Holly had to deal with the stupid passengers all by her self. After all, it was Holly who had shortened the crew to only two people in the first place. She should be the one to have to deal with the consequences. "Holly, why don't you do the coffee and tea now? I have some records I need to log," June said. She didn't really have anything to log, but that boy with the toy light saber had lots of friends on the plane. Half of all the people on the plane had one in a different color and they were very annoying. June didn't feel like having to be the one to deal with them.

"Really? You trust me that much?" Holly was surprised. She didn't get assigned to such big tasks that often.

"Of course I trust you," June said with sarcasm undetected by Holly. "Go knock yourself out."

"Coffee or tea?" Holly asked sweetly to a cute little boy clutching a plastic green light saber to his chest. The boy looked at her like she was from a different planet and asked in a very serious voice, "Did Obi-wan send you?"

Holly was stunned; nowhere in her training manual did it say she had to know anything about Star Wars! When she had been a kid her mother had red an article in Readers Digest about how children who watched a lot of sci-fi movies were more likely to get cancer than kids who didn't. After that her family boycotted all things outer space related. It was amazing that she even knew that this Obi-wan person was from Star Wars.

"Um…no, June sent me. Do you want coffee or tea?" Holly couldn't think of anything better to say

"Ick! I don't want coffee or tea. They're both gross." The boy stuck his tongue out. "Besides, I don't know this June person; she must be on the dark side."

Holly was a bit confused, but she moved on to the next person. Much to her chagrin this person was also a Star Wars fan. He had a similar light saber as the other kid except his was red.

"Coffee or tea?" Holly braced herself for an equally geeky question.

"Uh…yes," the boy said looking a little unsure.

Holly rolled her eyes. She almost preferred a random Star Wars question to the evil "yes." Even in the short time that she had been a trainee, she had noticed that almost a third of all the passengers would answer "yes" to "do you want this or that type" questions. It was very annoying. She slowly clarified for the boy, "Which do you want, coffee OR tea?"

"Oh, I'll have coffee please," the boy said with apologetic look. After Holly poured his glass he smiled and raised his cup to her. "May the Force be with you."

The next people were a cute elderly couple. "Hello," Holly greeted them warmly. "Would either of you like some coffee or tea?"

The lady with short grey hair smiled at Holly. "My husband and I would just love some tea, please." When Holly gave the lady the two cups, she said, "Thank you very much, Dear-y."

Holly would have answered the nice woman, but she couldn't because right at that moment, about three rows down, two kids in weird costumes started shouting at each other while whacking their long colored plastic things in the air. Children around them started cheering them on and other kids grabbed their own plastic sabers. Holly had no idea what to do about it.

"Gosh! June, did you see all those crazy geeks? They must all be on their way to some Star Wars convention or something. I just about died when they all started screaming and those one kids started reenacting this light saber fight in the middle of the aisle…"

June had just been sitting and reading a magazine when Holly had come into the galley. She new that Holly would probably have some interesting story to tell about the Star Wars people, but she never imagined it could have gotten that bad. "What! Why didn't you tell me? Is this still going on?"

"Yes, and I'm afraid I can't handle them by myself any longer." Holly hung her head.

June jumped to her feet. If half the passengers were running all over and screaming, then the other half were probably ticked off.

The entire plain was littered with chaos. The little Jedi's jumped around everywhere including on their seats reenacting some kind of Star Wars related moment. Elderly people and business men were plugging their ears, and everyone non-Jedi seemed to want to talk to the flight attendants for some reason or another. June was regretting having taken that break.

"Holly, you try to answer people's questions, and I'll deal with the little Darth Vaders. Okay?" June was thinking through various plans of attack.

"Okay. I'll try my best." Holly was nervous, but she tried to look her bravest as she walked up to an elderly couple. She hoped they would be as kind as the other old couple.

"You killed my father!" said a 10 year old Luke Skywalker impersonator dramatically.

An older kid with a Vader helmet on began to say even more dramatically, "No, Luke, I am…"

" Excuse me, sirs, but you have to remember that there are other people aboard, and some of them don't appreciate all the noise you are making, so I'm going to have to ask you to stop," June interrupted.

The boys blinked at her. June laughed inwardly. The best part of her job was getting to interrupt people at weird moments and catching them off their guard. It was loads of fun because you got to mess with people's minds without being thought rude.

"Thank you for your cooperation." June smiled her big fake smile. The next few people were having a light saber fight, so she didn't have time to find out if the boys really listened.

"Excuse me," June said to the battling teens as she maneuvered between them, "but you have to remember that there are others on this flight that are trying to sleep, so I'm going to have to ask you to stop!" June ducked a blue plastic saber.

"Sorry lady, but this is an important battle!" the kid lunged at his opponent.

"We can't stop now," said the other acne ridden teen.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I can't allow you to do this on the plane," June said. She was starting to get pretty frustrated. When she looked behind her she noticed that the other boys had not listened and had continued their reenacting. "Oh joy," June mumbled to herself.

Suddenly a boy three rows down began clutching his stomach and threw up all over the seat next to him. This boy didn't look like he had anything to do with the geek brigade, but It was impossible for June to get to him unless everyone else got in their seats. Suddenly she had an idea. "Stand by, young man, I'll be right with you." June

called over the heads of some dueling star princesses. She didn't want the boy to think he had been forgotten. Then she grabbed Holly. "Holly, I have an idea for calming the passengers down that might just work. You continue with answering their questions. I need to use the PA system."

June spoke confidently into the PA microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen, I know that there wasn't an in-flight film scheduled for this trip, but we've decided to show one anyways. I will give a complimentary pair of ear phones to anyone who wishes to watch it. The movie will be a documentary on the famous Star Wars films."

June's idea worked wonders. All the reenacting Jedi's began sitting in there seats to wait for head sets saying things like, "Gosh. I've always wanted to see this one," and, "Sweet! A Star Wars movie."

June handed Holly the bucket of ear phones and the DVD. "Here Holly, I think you can handle this. I have a sick boy I need to help clean up."

When June reached the little boy, he seemed to have found the vomit bag hadn't made any bigger mess. So June gave the kid some water and cleaned the vacant seat next to him as best she could with the few supplies and cleaners they had on the plane. The ground crew would help clean it better once they landed.

"Oh, June, you must have made a mistake. On my report card you say I did well on this flight." Holly was confused.

"You did do well, Holly. Maybe not so much when you served the drinks and before that, but after that, I think you handled the people on the plane very professionally. I am proud of you. You just might make a good flight attendant someday."

"Oh, June, that's very nice of you, but I've decided I don't want to be a flight attendant anymore.

"Why not?" June was shocked that anyone wouldn't want to be an FA. She loved her even though it was very stressful.

"I'm not very good at dealing with screaming passengers and all that chaos. However, When I was answering all those passengers questions, the only time I felt like I was saying anything right was when I was talking to an elderly person. Being a flight attendant isn't half as much fun as I thought it would be and I think I would like working in some kind of home for old people instead. I think I might be good at something like that."

June smiled at Holly. She understood; if she wasn't very good at being a flight attendant then she probably wouldn't want to be one either. "Well, if that's really what you want, then I can't think of a better idea. Let's go tell Ash and Alice about our fun flight. I think they're awake now."

The End