Hong Kong bound. You speak English, the passengers speak Cantonese... No problem!

After a particularity rough day, two months into my life 'on the line' as a flight attendant, I arrived in the crew lounge to find my roommate. When I say roommate I don't mean someone I shared a house/apartment with, I literally mean  roommate!  Michelle, my roommate & I shared an over priced room together in Toronto for a year. Through the up's and down's of training, being no-show's on some of our first flights, to having seemingly crazy fellow 'flighty' housemates. We went through it all together, and thank God we had each other! So, after bumping into each other in the crew lounge, we started exchanging stories about our respective days as we simultaneously checked our emails and the available trips for the next day. We both had fairly standard days for new flight attendants, you know, still so in training mode that you think every little thing is about to become an emergency situation. After finishing up on the computers, the conversation headed toward food and we realized we both hadn't eaten for a good portion of the day. So, we decided to go over to the employee cafeteria before heading home. As we grabbed our bags and headed for the door, we came face to face with another good friend *Steve. We hadn't seen him in so long and had so much to catch up on, so we told him to come with us to the employee cafeteria! 
Once we were all gathered with our food and our bags parked beside each other, we started to compare stories of trips. Steve was an amazing storyteller and just had a way of making every mundane situation sound glamourous and drama filled. Michelle on the other hand was so quiet, and told stories in a completely unassuming way and had no idea how hilarious they actually were. 

For example, Michelle began to tell us about a recent layover in London she had. Michelle found herself with a couple of our mutual gay male friends and ended up hanging out in SoHO. After bouncing around from a restaurant to a couple of of different pubs they ended up at G A Y (for those of you not familiar... huge, popular(?) gay club in London). Once there, she was almost instantly ditched by our friends and left to drink and dance by herself, with a ton of unfamiliar, great looking gay men! After her first drink she hit the dance floor, and after a couple of minutes was approached by a guy who started dancing with her until, seconds later when he lost interest and walked away. Michelle felt a little bummed, but not enough to keep her from dancing. A little while later, still dancing, michelle felt someone blow really hard into her ear and turned around quickly. A second guy was standing just inches from her, he pointed to himself , then to her and mimed to her that he wanted to dance. So they started to dance together, until he eventually walked away as well. As she stood there confused, guy #1 came back and started to shake it with her again. This time they're having fun and smiling until he leans forward and grabs her breasts with two hands and walks away. Michelle stood there on the middle of the dance floor shell shocked, until she felt a blast of wind in her other ear! When she turned around, there was guy #2, he was back for more! He pointed to himself again and then to her and again mimed that he wanted to dance. So again, they start to dance together, and in her head Michelle was reeling! What just happened? When guy #2 walked away yet again. Annoyed, rejected, and a little disturbed she made her way back to the bar where she found one of the guys she arrived with. 
"Where have you been??" she asked him. He told her he had just been dancing around the place. At that point Michelle began to explain what just happened on the dance floor and he laughed. Michelle let him know that she wanted to get going soon, since it was so late. He informed her that she would have to find  her own way back, because he wanted to stay out for a couple more hours. So now, worried about getting  back to the hotel by herself and a little pissed at being ditched (but wanting to leave all the same) Michelle went to find the restroom before leaving. She circled the club 3 or 4 times without luck. 'Could this place not have a restroom?' She wondered. Then she spotted a narrow stairwell and entered it, not knowing where it lead to. As she started going down, two men draped over each other were coming up. Michelle asked the two clearly inebriated men if she was on the right path to the ladies washroom. One of them looked up at her and in a very strong british accent said "F$*k off LESSSbian! We are going to have SeX!" and pushed past her in the stairwell. Totally dejected, Michelle started to cry and grabbed a taxi towards the hotel.
As Michelle wraps up her story with "... isn't that awful? What a terrible night... I'm not even a lesbian!" Steve and I looked at each other and doubled over laughing. That was the the most random hilarious night either of us had heard about in a long time. Michelle started to smile and admits to it's randomness.

Don't know if Steve's passengers were as happy as this couple?!

Steve then piped up and starts telling us of his many trips all over the world. I ask about the infamous 15 hour long trip to Hong Kong, and if he's had one yet. He tells me "Oh God Yes! And Honey... it was Awful! I'll never do it again! I felt so awful from being in the plane for so long and so jet lagged- I just wanted to die!" Oh! I had been so looking forward to getting  one of those trips to see Asia for the first time, now I wasn't so sure! He told us in long detail how the flight just seems to go on forever, and the never ending amount of services knocks the wind out of your sails! He went on to say how, on the flight back after an awful sleep and not having eaten very much on his layover he was extremely cranky. The last two hours of the flight were absolutely tortuous. After 13 previous hours of trying to bridge the communication gap between Cantonese and English to guess what passengers want to drink from the beverage cart he was fed up, and according to him, went crazy. Talking loudly to the passengers who didn't understand him, his eye twitching, he would ask, "Anything to drink?" and they would respond but he couldn't make out what they had said. So he started making random beverages and giving them to any passenger in his path, as they stared at him completely confused. "Here you go! You look like a coffee drinker- a coffee for you sir!" 
".... And you young lady, look like you want an apple juice- there you are! ... and the three of you...? I think you'll enjoy a refreshing Coke!". He went row by row with a high pitch insane giggle as he poured random drinks for for all the passengers and all they could do was stare up, back at him confused. Even going along talking to himself, seeing as the passengers didn't understand him. "Would you like anything to drink? ... Oh! That's right, you don't understand me... and you can't tell me what you want!" "Oooh! this actually looks delicious! don't mind if I take a sip do you?" before handing the drink to the passenger. We stared at him, wide eyed. "You didn't!" we cried out in unison. We both couldn't believe what we were hearing. "Darling, I had lost it! I was delusional from lack of oxygen & sleep! If I heard 'Co-Hee', for a can of Sprite one more time- I was gonna put a chop stick in my eye!". He stares at us dead pan as we collapse into laughter at the idea of about 300 poor Mandarin & Cantonese speaking passengers staring up at Steve while he gave out drinks of his choice to them and they looked on helplessly!


Sometimes things have a tendency to get lost in translation at 35,000 Ft!