Houston, we have a problem

            There's just something about flight attendants that I've always found very glamorous and sophisticated. I don't know if it's an overuse of starch that they might put on their uniforms, but they seem to have the best posture and look as proud as peacocks to be wearing them. It's apparent in the way that they carry themselves through the airport, walking with purpose towing their matching luggage behind them, heads held high. The men with their crisp, clean navy blues and blacks, their golden wings pinned to their chests. The women with their knee length dresses and panty hosed legs, fresh makeup on their faces and perfectly groomed hair, like they just walked out of a salon. Even today, when I'm on a flight I notice that they still look like the pictures from the 50's, like professional Stepford wives. I'm not sure if this is an image that was put in my head because of my mother as I was growing up or if this was something that I conjured up later, but for as long as I can remember I have been intrigued by the their occupation and their lifestyle. How amazing it must be to fly all around the world for a living, traversing to places that you never even knew you wanted or could afford to visit. My mother used to tell me the story of the time when she was a teenager back in the 70's, when she and her cousin once went to an interview for a flight attendant position together. They were ready and willing to do the job they were offered with that same dreamy idea about the life of a flight attendant that I envision myself. However, before they made their final decisions, destiny intervened and my mother met my father. They fell in love, got married, had my brothers and I, and the rest was history. I always liked imagining her at that age, young and carefree, the whole world at her fingertips, before life's tragedies and responsibilities began to sink their teeth into her easy spirit. Whenever we used to take a flight somewhere or drove by an airport, she would look dreamily at the airplanes flying by and whisper in my ear how much she wished she could have been a flight attendant. She would always correct herself when she realized whom she was talking to, throwing in, "But I'm glad that I didn't though, because then I wouldn't have had you, and I couldn't imagine my life without you in it," so that I wouldn't feel hurt by her wish and, therefore, my nonexistence. Hearing her say that would always make me smile but I knew better, her dream was to be in that profession and travel the world, even if it was for just a little while. When I was entering the end of my junior year of high school, I was considering the idea of joining the air force more and more everyday. At the time, I liked the thrill and action packed excitement behind being in the Air Force versus being just a flight attendant myself. Before the end of the year I had gone as far as to take the ASVAB test to see if I even had the mental aptitude to do it. I didn't really know then where the pull inside me to do it was coming from, but now I think that my interest in aviation may have been sparked by my mother's idea of the lifestyle. I passed the test and the recruiters were on my tail like white on rice, but like my mother, I ended up meeting my high school sweet heart shortly before making a commitment and the rest was history. However, the desire to be around planes never left me.

            Rewind to April: Now here is where this desire hit me like a ton of bricks again. Feeling the itch to spread my wings and the need for a life less ordinary, I began to contemplate a different path for myself than the one I was on at the time. Spending my days taking the odd film job here and waiting tables in between there, just wasn't exciting me in the least anymore and I wasn't getting any younger. So I decided to apply for a flight attendant position. I sent my resume to several airlines, took the required assessment tests and waited to see what would happen. I wasn't expecting to hear from anyone any time soon, but I waited through April, May, June, then just dang forgot I even applied. About a week ago, United Airlines contacted me and asked if I was still interested in a position as a flight attendant. I thought about it for a minute and felt—this had to be a sign! I was not so long ago worried about how on earth I was going to pull off visiting all of these places I've put down on my bucket list, without having the kind of money I would need to get to those places. Then this opportunity practically fell on my lap. Not only would I be able to fly anywhere United went in or around the United States free of charge, but also, my parents would finally be able to travel the way they always wished they could. Through this, I would not only be able to fulfill many of my dreams, but theirs as well. So, of course I said yes and Monday afternoon, United Airlines flew me to Houston, Texas!

            When I got to the airport, I was ready to impress and dressed for success. I looked as formal as my possible future colleagues the minute I went through the dreadful gates at the terminal. As I waited patiently for an hour to board my plane, which never showed up, they canceled the flight. The interview wasn't until the following morning but I needed to check into my hotel and get some zzz's first or my lack of sleep would be my undoing later. While standing in line at customer service to catch another flight, I was talking to a service agent on the phone, hoping to get the process rolling sooner than later and secure the next flight out to Houston. I never mentioned anything to the agent on the phone about my reason for going to Houston but I was assured a seat on the five o'clock flight. However, I was put on hold before I could get a confirmation and before I knew it I was next in line. When I got to the already agitated agent at the counter, a twenty something with slick dark hair tied tightly to the back of her head, I told her that I had a space on a five o'clock flight, she told me the next available flight wasn't until seven that night. That was five hours away and then over three hours of flight time later. This was not going well. Something inside of me told me to keep my cool though. I'm usually a very patient person, Zen-like even, but I was nervous as hell and on edge all day because of this interview. I was about to snap some attitude back at the girl but somehow kept it together. It was a good thing too because less than five minutes later she looked at me with some curiosity when something seemed to pop up on her screen and she asked me, "are you going to an interview?" I looked at her like she was Harry Houdini for a second, then confirmed. A few quick taps of the keyboard with her long red nails later, I had a five o'clock flight non-stop to Houston. I could get used to this. Having what I want for free and everyone being so complacent because I roll with United, sounds good to me. I was a little paranoid after that situation though. If this chick knew what I was doing on this flight, then maybe they ALL knew. They're watching me like a hawk. Big brother is everywhere. I was afraid to even slouch after that. Who knows what they'll tell the big guys out in Houston? This girl has bad posture. Toss her file guys, she's a sloucher and she's not smiling enough.

            On my flight I was oddly wedged between a monk on my left, who seemed to be sleeping in the most perfect state of bliss and a middle-aged southern bell on my right, who had me sneezing from all of the hairspray she had in her hair. She was sweet enough and offered me her Oprah magazine, but she could not stop talking the entire flight. Luckily she had her husband next to her to pour her thick Southern drawl onto. I was too nervous to do anything but listen to Elvis on my headset. Elvis makes everything better. What was supposed to be a three-hour flight ended up being nearly four hours because of plane traffic. As I sat in the plane circling Houston I realized that it was September 10th, not quite the 11th, but it was close enough that I began to get a little apprehensive about the delay. Finally we landed at the George Bush International Airport, free and clear, and I was able to grab my shuttle outside of the terminal before last pickup. My friendly driver made small talk the instant I sat inside. He seemed a little thirsty for conversation after sitting alone in that van most of the day. The first question he asked me, which once again threw me off guard, was "are you here for the interview?" How does everyone know this? Apparently, he was a very intuitive and recently retired cop from New York City who had decided to just jump in his big ol' SUV one day and drove cross country to see what the south of America had to offer his pension plan. He had already been through the Carolinas, Mississippi, Louisiana and just a few weeks ago landed himself in Houston. So far he has hated every single state he found himself in. It seemed that he was looking for a place to call home, someplace away from the life he had always known and buy himself a big house to settle down in his retirement. He was looking for something that would probably cost as much as the home he has in the city but that could easily crush its small stature with the likes of a Texan home. He had been in Houston longer than any of the other cities or states he's traveled through so far, not because he particularly liked Houston, in fact he couldn't wait to leave, but because he needed to make a little extra money for his gas guzzling SUV to get back to New York. He liked Houston well enough though, the land, the houses and the people, but one look at the downtown area at eight-thirty in the evening, which looked like a ghost town compared to New York City, had him spinning his tires back to his hotel with plans to leave the next day. He was about to head back when the clerk at the hotel offered him the shuttle job for a few weeks and he took the opportunity to make the extra income. When you've spent most of your life in the city that never sleeps and you find yourself in a city that likes to take a lot of naps, it's not surprising that he reacted to Houston the way that he did. I myself don't think I could ever live comfortably in a suburb again, not without a good reason anyway. It's always nice to visit, but to live in a place where everyone just sits around a television all day for fun makes me depressed just thinking about it. Day in and day out, go to work, go home, watch TV, eat, sleep, and do it all over again. My life is not much different on any given day, however, I love the idea that I can just walk a few blocks from my apartment and there are rows of clubs, bars, restaurants and cafes open until four in the morning, some open twenty four hours a day and I can just grab a book or my laptop, if I can't sleep and just sit in a diner, sipping some coffee or tea and read, write or just people watch if I want to. Most of my friends are up as late as I am and we sometimes spend all hours of the night just socializing. I never got to do that in the suburbs. Although, I'm glad that they do exist. There is something comforting in having a place where families can grow safely. I'm grateful for having been brought up in a place such as that. The city is wonderful for adults, but I would never raise children there unless I had the money to put them in a safe home with a doorman and private schools.

            Sitting on the shuttle next to me was a United pilot that we picked up on the way to the same hotel. I was excited to see that she was a female pilot. It's a rare thing to see, even in these days. Apparently, this wasn't the first time the driver had picked up this particular pilot, because they knew each other by name. The three of us talked about United and my pilot friend was nice enough to give me a few pointers. She told me that she once applied to be a flight attendant with TWA before she became a pilot and they turned her down. Well, look at her now. TWA eat your heart out. That made me feel better, knowing that she was passed over and made a better life for herself in turn, gave me hope that all will not be lost if United turns me down too. I won't be the first or the last I'm sure. With her shiny golden wings glistening against the headlights of oncoming traffic, I sat there soaking up all of her stories. I was completely fascinated by her and she had grown to be a hero in my eyes in less than fifteen minutes.

            As I was checking in at the hotel, I asked the man at the front desk for a shuttle in the morning. Before I told him where I was going he already knew I was there for THE interview. I didn't tell him. I didn't tell anyone. He just knew. I booked the hotel on my own and it had nothing to do with United. How did everyone know this? Was it written all over my nervous face? They MUST be watching me! Straighten your back Marcy. Are you smiling? Are you smiling like you MEAN it? They probably have analysts studying my every move with thermal vision cameras. Stop freaking yourself out woman! Relax. Once I pulled myself from my imagination gone wild, I wished the pilot luck on her fourteen-hour flight to Tokyo in the morning and she wished me the same on my interview. Then I was off to my room to panic. I think talking to my newfound pilot friend made me even more nervous than comforted. Before that conversation I was very much at ease about the whole situation, nervous, sure, but it was just a job I didn't necessarily need because I have one. I thought that if I got the position, great, if I didn't, that was great too. I would have had much less to stress about without the job anyway. However, after our dialogue I decided that I REALLY wanted the job, the benefits, the uniform, the luxury, the freedom, the PIN. It just sounded all too wonderful through her eyes. Oh man, I'm in trouble. Whenever I want something too desperately, I mess it up. I put too much pressure on the situation and it just blows up in my face. I would have been better off not ever talking to the pilot because my lax-a-daisy attitude about it before is what would have won my position. Now that I want it so badly, I'm certain not to get it. I once applied to McDonald's when I was just about to turn sixteen, and because I was so desperate for the job I made myself so nervous, they turned me down flat. I can never eat another big mac again I'm so dejected. Wonderful, this may ruin aviation for me forever. I may never want to fly again.

            In my hotel room, I paced back and forth for about two hours trying to get my story straight. Who am I? Why do I want to be a flight attendant? What would I do if this happened or if that happened? Nothing that came out of my mouth sounded right. I wish I could just write them a blog post and have them read it to themselves and not have to utter a single word. I have the right things to say, I just have a very hard time expressing them verbally. I'm doomed.

            The next morning, September 11th, I was sad for my fellow New Yorkers. I was thinking of those who were on United flight 93 and tried to imagine what it may have been like to be on that plane. What would I have done? What could I have done? They were helpless. At the United Inflight Training Center, where my shuttle dropped two others and myself from the hotel, going to the same interview, we had a moment of silence for those who fell that day before anything was started. To think, it could have been any one of us, had we chosen to apply for the job back in 2001 instead of now. In the room of about seventy other possible candidates, all dressed to impress and most of them seeming slightly older than myself, I sat as happy and as confident as my acting capabilities could stretch. We watched a short video introducing the company and then a line of about eight interviewers called out the names of the first round of people. The rest of us sat listening to a senior flight attendant as he talked to us about the job and answered questions. I listened like my life depended upon it while my pulse was banging savagely against my eardrum. I'm pretty sure that it was visibly throbbing down my neck for the guy next to me to observe with wonder. I was beyond nervous enough to sweat. There were so many nerves and arteries working overtime between my head and my heart that there was nothing left for my sweat glands to do but sit still in my body, confused by what was going on everywhere else. I was dry as a bone and pale as a ghost. If they hadn't called my name when they did I think it's possible that I would have probably passed out from the stress. Oddly enough, if someone's life was put in my hands, someone tried to attack me or one of my loved ones and I had to make a life changing decision on the spot, I'm on top of my game. In that sense, I'm without a doubt great under pressure. Everything just becomes clear and focused, my mind and body pump the perfect amount of adrenaline and I am the go to person everyone can depend on and usually turns to for leadership when there is a problem. However, I am strangely the opposite when it's a matter of getting something I want for myself. When the thing that I desire is in the hands of someone who has the authority to snap it from my reach, only because of what they assume to think of me, that is when I fall to pieces. I put so much pressure on what I think they want of me instead of who I really am, that I become the very thing that I don't like and they don't want. In a perfect world, HR people would just train the amount of people they need for a job and through their work ethic, they could then judge their abilities to do the job well or not. A position until proven unworthy, I say. Only in a perfect world, I suppose.

            Listening to the senior flight attendant at the front of the room for some time began to put me a little more at ease. He was pointing out all of the negative things about the position that made my desire to get the job seem less dire. The sporadic, last minute on call days that first hires have to live through for up to two years, the reality of traveling on days off within those two years, and the unpaid training, which I thought was only three weeks, is actually four and a half weeks did not seem very glamorous when he put things in that perspective. I was then also that I realized that the next training session fell on the first week of October. Houston, we have a problem here. That would mean that for the entire month of October I would not only be out of paid work, but I'm supposed to be in Peru from October 27th to November 4th. How can I possibly be in two places at once? My trip is nonrefundable and a high priority on my list of things to accomplish this year. What is a girl to do now? I pushed this thought aside for the time being. With my luck I probably wouldn't even get the job anyway. There were seventy other people in this room and I doubt half of us were going to get a position. With that thought in mind, just before I was called to my interview, I fell back into my lax-a-daisy self and just let it be as it should. I leave it in God's hands now.

            My interviewer was a lanky man with pimples dotting his young face. I was glad for this. I feel a little more at ease around men that I'm not particularly attracted to. Some of the women who were doing the interviews looked severe with their stoic faces and tight buns attached to the back of their heads. I think I would have cried if they just looked at me the wrong way. My lanky interviewer led to a room squared off by dozens of cubicles the size of cattle pens. I could hear the voices of the other interviewers travel between the mid sized walls as they squirmed like veal in the five by five spaces around me. I sat in my seat, aware of my posture at first but then lost track of where my backbone was meant to be shortly there after. My interviewer shot me the typical questions I thought I was prepared for. I answered everything as truthfully as I could, or gave them the answers I believe they wanted to hear while I pretended to have to think about them, when in reality had them all memorized in advance. I was glad that he was too busy scribbling away my responses on my resume and not looking directly at me most of the time. I threw in a joke here in there and he cracked a few times, thank God. Then before I knew it, my twenty-four hour journey was over in fifteen minutes and I was led to the front entrance. I don't think I got the job though. I believe the interview went well enough but I had read, through doing some research prior to the interview, that if a candidate were chosen, I would have been led to a second interview immediately. This didn't happen and it didn't happen for the other five people who joined me outside for a shuttle back to the airport. At least I wasn't alone in my misery. However, there's still a possibility that I could get it and this could very well change the course of my life forever. I'm not positive what my final decision will be if I happen to get this job, but I believe that this opportunity has presented itself to me in a time of great change in my life for a reason. There is such a vast need in me to discover the world that I live in and who I am in it that not taking this opportunity would be like slapping the hand of God. I think that if I am offered this job, I will take it. But, for now, it's just wait and see.