Enjoy Your Flight!

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard. We know you could have flown on any other airline, but that would have cost you fifty cents more, so thanks for choosing us.

And before you blame us for today’s miserable flying experience, isn’t getting there as cheaply as you can the game you play when you spend all those hours on Orbitz and Kayak and Travelocity? We’re simply helping you win that game!

A special shout out to those of you that paid extra money for comfort class. Oh sure, there’s still not enough space to get up and go potty without everyone else on your  aisle getting up too, but there’s room enough for your knees! Think of those poor chumps in the back that will be sitting catty-cornered for the next 5 hours!

Also, a special welcome to those of you that are First Class, Second Class, Gold Plated, Free World, Unified, Dignified or Petrified Club members. And if you’re a Medallion flyer, be sure and upgrade to our Swinging Medallion Club status. That ensures you’ll get a seat on the plane where the headphone jack actually works, and you can listen to music!

Get it? Swinging Medallion… music…? No?

By the way, coming soon is a new class of service called R&R. The first ‘r’ is for ‘rest’, and the second ‘r’ is for ‘room’. Ahhhh, some of you have already guessed it, it’s restroom seating. Scoff if you wish, but it will offer way more seating room than you have right now.

For those of you that aren’t already members of our frequent flyer program, we encourage you to sign up. Every time you fly, you’ll get points you can redeem for stuff. Sometimes. Not always. I mean, you always get points; that’s our way of thanking you for your loyalty. It’s that we don’t just let you use them. Think of it as our “thank you” but with strings attached.

How many points, you ask? It’s difficult to say. Corporate likes to change the rules when it looks like you may actually be getting some benefit from them. But it’s always to your advantage!

For example, we used to offer one point for every mile flown. So if you flew from Atlanta to LA, for example, you would get around 2000 points. But now, we offer you one point for every dollar spent. So if you bought your ATL – LA ticket for $800, you’ll get 800 points. That cheap Priceline-ing rascal next to you that only spent $350 will get only 350 points. See? The more you spend, the more you benefit! You win again!

We do encourage you to buy as many tickets as possible as quickly as possible, as we’re changing our rewards program again next week so that you will only get points for the minutes you spend online booking your flight. But - pssst! - here’s an industry insider secret: type your information in s-l-o-w-l-y. That way, it will take you ten minutes – earning ten points – instead of just five minutes, earning only five points.

Don’t let me catch you sharing that on TripAdvisor!

We will be offering cabin service today. If you’d like a drink , we have those little bottles you pay $1.50 for at the liquor store. We’re selling them for $8. If you’d like food, we’ll sell you a 1-oz. bag of potato chips. Water and napkins are free. We don’t give you extra napkins if you eat the first one.

But hey, whatever you do, please don’t fuss at your flight attendant. You think this is any fun for us? Working those 6-inch wide aisles, pushing that cart saying, “watch your elbows, watch your shoulders, watch your knees” with every step?

Cramped for you cramps us, too. That’s our unofficial slogan.

Besides, they’ve cut our pensions and extended our hours. We’re here to serve you only because McDonald’s isn’t hiring this week.

Hey, but enough about us! This is about you and your experience with us. To help you enjoy that experience, we remind you this is a no smoking flight. Oh sure, there are some ashtrays onboard, but that’s just an indicator of how old this plane really is! Seriously, who remembers when you could smoke on a plane?

While this bird may be old, though, she has been retro-fitted with new seats! As a means of helping get more people to more places and spending less money to do it, we’ve installed narrower seats and added more of them. Now, this will leave those of you with aisle seats tending to lean out into the aisle as a means of grasping for enough space to be comfortable.

Don’t do that. There are people walking sideways trying to get to the bathroom.

Instead, overlap your shoulders with the person sitting next to you. Heck, you’re practically sitting in their lap already. Go ahead and get intimate! Sure, it squeezes you a little but takes the squeeze off our bottom line! Ha ha! A little corporate humor there!

Speaking of corporate humor, a special welcome to those of you that once owned stock in our airline. You know, before we went bankrupt, declared your stock worthless and issued new stock. In a few minutes, our CEO will appear on the screen to tell you how much you mean to us and how much we care.

Enjoy your flight.

A Friend Indeed

Recently, I was recognized for my too-many years on the radio. It’s an annual affair that honors a handful of folk that were incapable of holding down a real job, and therefore, opted to settle for a low-wage gig that made us feel important.

From a post on social media, I learned that Kim was coming.

Kim and I worked together for a few years, but that was probably twenty years ago. During those years, we were decent friends. Not terribly close, but I recall sharing a beer together a couple of times, and we always got along well.

As Kim left the radio station and moved away for a career in something more meaningful, she pretty much slipped off my radar. That happens a lot in radio; people move in and out of the business, often, in pretty short order. Some of those you remember, some you don’t. I wouldn’t forget Kim, but we didn’t stay in touch. We just weren’t that close.

Still, because Kim took a job with a large charitable organization, and my radio work sometimes partnered with her charity, we would bump into one another occasionally. Kim’s smile is 10-feet wide, so it was always nice to see her. We’d hug big, I’d ask how she was doing, she’d ask how I was doing, we’d ask how each other’s spouses were doing, and that would be it for the next five or ten years.

As social media became a gathering place for former cronies to come together, I would occasionally see a post from Kim. They usually involved her dog, but I tend to zone out on dog/cat/hamster/wolverine posts, so I didn’t pay much attention.

But now we have this upcoming event, and Kim was coming. Since she is no longer in radio, I couldn’t imagine why she would be attending, but it made me happy. It would be nice to see her again, and it meant there would be someone to pal around with at this event where I would not know many people.

My wife and I greeted Kim and her husband as they took their seats next to us in the auditorium. I was anxious to know why she was there.

“What’s your affiliation with this event?” I asked.

“You,” she said. “You’re being honored and we wanted to be here for it.”

Hm. Wasn’t at all expecting that.

Here’s someone I’ve seen maybe three times in the last two decades, buying tickets (that weren’t cheap!), driving in from another city, all just to be there to show support.

Hm.

It was a fun night. Besides catching up with Kim, it turns out there were several people there I knew, and we made a few new friends.

I was grateful to be nominated for recognition by the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. It’s nice to be honored for your work, even if it probably is just because you were able to stay with it for so many years. But the highlight of the night was getting absolutely schooled in what it means to be a friend.

I hope that lesson sticks with me.