missbhavens and Miss Betty-in-the-Sky-with-a-Suitcase

First, a note: blogger and vlogger extraordinaire (and fellow inhabitant of Queens) missbhavens is one of my few and beloved readers. Missb– I do not know why you are getting caught by my spam filter! I am trying to rectify it, please bear with me.

Now, did I ever mention that I am addicted to the podcasts of Flight Attendant Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase? Click that link for her blog with podcasts, or go to iTunes and subscribe (she’s in there). On a recent round-trip to Europe on her employer’s airline (which shall remain nameless, but loyal readers know), I secretly hoped she’d be on my flight. (Luckily, she has a distinctive voice., so if she offered me a soft drink, I’d know.)

I am not sure if it is Betty’s sparkling personality, or the way she gets fellow crew members, and even passengers, to tell the funniest stories of life in flight or her globe-trotting travels, but I am glued to my headphones. (I have a hunch that I could get into well-made podcasts even on topics I have no interest in, but there’s not enough time in the day to test that out in any systematic way!)

It might also be the fact that the verbal chameleon has a weak connection to the airline industry, having once spent a summer working security in the busiest airport in the U.S. It was there that I met fellow security guard Ibrahim, a Cuban marathon runner, who whiled away our long night shifts regaling me with tales of his three girlfriends (two of whom were otherwise attached, which meant many of the stories were of near-escapes, three steps ahead of potentially life-threatening situations).

It’s also where I met Mazur, the cleaning man who knew no English, but taught me my first words of Polish (note: I still only know a few.) Mazur was always mopping and buffing the walkway in Terminal One at 2:30 in the morning, when I went to “lunch.” This was the walkway where the rainbow neon lights flutter above, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue booms out.

In the daytime, filled with people, it doesn’t boom. But at 2:30 a.m., the tune ends slowly in the darkened walkway, barely lit at night except for the decorative rainbow lights above, and the recorded woman’s voice warning “the moving walkways are now ending:”

Boom boom boom
Boom boom
Boom boom boom
Boom boooooom boooooom boooooooom boooooooooooooooooom!

The effect was downright eerie. Mazur was a welcome sight.

When I left at the end of the summer to go to college, Mary and Wally and the other security guards gave me a silver pen and pencil set, engraved with my initials.
I still have it. I used it today.