The lady who steals and then turns herself in

Alright, let's admit it - who here hasn't at one point of another bagged something off an aircraft, say a spoon with logo, a blanket, perhaps even the pillow? Right, let's assume everybody has.

Honestly, nobody really cares, at least from the point of view of a flight attendant. A missing plastic bowl here and there won't cost the company bankruptcy, nor is it our least concern when given the thousand other things to worry about. The matter here is how tactfully or blatantly you steal.

On one of my earliest flights to Surabaya, Indonesia, my passengers happen to be quite keen on taking home the plastic ware from the meal trays. As I gingerly brake my cart row after row to collect soiled trays after the meal service, I can't help but notice my workload being lighter than usual: nothing obnoxious gets stuck in the cart; no greasy meat sauce leaps onto my fingers; no sticky forks poking out here and there - that's because some of the trays were literally void.

What happened to the salad bowl? The entree dish... the green teacup? I'd pretend to not notice as I gracefully pick up the delightfully light trays. In turn, the passenger would pretend to be sound asleep or, even better, that everything is just fine. "Thank you," I'd say with a little grin, meaning really "someone's been naughty!" and move on.

And while some passengers feel no qualms in taking airline property home as memorabilia, some just need to polish up on their tactics. Before tray collection comes tea and coffee service. As a rule, the caffeine-seeking passenger passes his or her green teacup over to get it filled on the aisle.

"Would you care for some coffee?" I make eye contact as I work the runway with my jug.
"Yes, coffee please." An Indonesian woman sleepily stirs in her seat. I turn and my eyes land on her empty tray. Uh huh.
"And... may I have your green cup please?"
The lady then blankly stares at her tray, also blank, and a few quiet seconds pass.
"Uh... haha, no... no need coffee!" Her face blushes red and she quickly closes her eyes. I take it that she is once again "asleep"...

The No.1 occupational hazard: morning breath

It doesn't take long to realize the detrimental effects of frequent flying on our health. Aching backs, sore legs, busted, chafed fingers are but everyday occupational occurences, not to mention rapidly aging skin thanks to the long hours we work in the arid cabin and our screwed up body clock. Nothing, however - and I repeat, nothing - can be more abominable and can take away more years of our lives, than the morning breath that exudes from the mouth of a passenger. Holy, lord.

A typical casualty scenario goes like this: It's 8 hours or so into the flight, and the cabin is absolutely pitch black and some passenger would press that wretched call light. "Yes, may I help you, sir?" I'd bend down, face close to the passenger, and pull up that obligated smile to euphemize an otherwise annoyed question "now what do you want?!" (Oops, did I just say that)

The passenger then stirs sluggishly in his seat, eyes glued shut by eye-boogers and not so much than parting his lazy lips, "cahhhn I have a guh-laaaasss of wahhh-tahhh..."

Before I could remind myself to take precautionary measures of holding my breath after my question, the stench of decayed matters would have already made its way through my nostrils into my already dust-filled lungs. An involuntary gag and compulsion would follow as my body violently responds to the infiltration of lethal gas - but god forbid, this natural instinct to survive must be tactfully suppressed in the face of the sleepy passenger.

"Oh... Oooh... ss...sure... Certainly..." These words would somehow find its way out of my arrested respiratory system while I struggle to regain consciousness. As soon as I stand up and turn around, head spinning from the massacre of brain cells, I'd pretend to cough in the hopes of repelling what must have been a flourescent green vapor that sipped out of that passenger's hole and penetrated into my system. But no matter how hard you try, that atrociously sour stench would linger - if not in your nostrils - in your brain.

This scenario doesn't occur only once, but multiple times during each flight, whether it is at the passenger seat or outside the galley where a passenger with crazy bed-head would request for a coffee (which would only further degrade your breath). And lord, morning breath does travel far -we're talking about several feet here.

So please, I beg, there is a reason why a breath mint and a toothbrush and toothpaste are packed into your little overnight amenity pouch. I really start to believe that it is there for cabin crew sake. When enough passengers don't make good use of these resources, I swear halitosis would one day become our No. 1 killer.

Fear of flying?

I have never been on so many air crash accidents.

But touch wood, those only occurred in the crash simulator. Within two intensive weeks during our safety training back in November, I've gone from First Aid training and firefighting to learning to cast off a slideraft in the middle of Pacific Ocean. Daily assessments and performance monitoring pushed everyone to the limit, while memorization of numerous aircraft safety equipment locations, precautions and operation procedures kept our brains racing through the nights.

Our militaristic training culminated with the last week of emergency door procedures and our primary duty - emergency evacuation. Thanks to all the different types of aircrafts in the industry, cabin doors come with all sorts of sizes and configurations, which means we must keep our heads clear at all times on the precise operation and function of each door in each type of situations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Evacuate! Evacuate!!!" Once we spent an entire morning screaming a litany of evacuation commands miles down until all our voices cracked and only till we each passed the vocal assessment. Next came the most exciting, yet most nerveracking stage of our training - crash simulation - where our cumulative knowledge was ultimately put to practice and test. Now we were all on our own. Failing this segment would lead to summary dismissal.

Within those few days, we have experienced all possible forms of air crash and evacuation drills. Engine fires, technical failures, explosions, haulted takeoffs, decompression, the unknown - you name it - our instructor never failed to surprise us each time and the chosen assessees would have their hearts pounding through the ceiling. Is it land or ditching (sea) evacuation? What must I do if the slide fails to inflate? What equipment must I bring with me? "I'm going to crash the plane with some add-ons today," our instructor would hint, but at that point that was more of a given than anything else.

In fact, we crashed so much then that I'd admit, during takeoff and landing on my first few actual flights, I instinctively adopted my brace position and gripped onto my crew seat so hard my palms ached. So next time you fly, look out for those cabin crew who do the same.

Spillage: the baptism of a novice

-"Would you care for something to drink, ma'am?"
-"Orange Juice, please."
-"Orange Juice. Certainly."

Training school could teach us the standard service language, but it could not prepare us with the skills as essential as... pouring OJ. Funny thing is, not one of my classmates escaped the fate of causing spillage on their first, or even second or third, flight. All skills develop through experience, and pouring juice inflight is no exception.

With those juice cartons that they use in Economy class, there is just something annoying about the way it squirts out the last glops when you retract after pouring the glass. Whether you are pouring a tray-ful of glasses on the galley countertop or pouring an individual glass on the aisle, experience would soon prove that the perfect angle, the correct squeeze, and the precise moment of retraction would put that squirt under control and not towards your own hand or the passenger's face. There I was, on my first flight, dutifully pouring the OJ facing the passenger, and oops, upon retraction, that lady's shoulder was splattered with OJ from concentrate.

First lesson learned: Never pour any drinks facing the passenger.

Then on my way from Manila back to Hong Kong, I learned another hard lesson. "Water, please." I quickly handed over a glass of water to a middle-aged Filipino man, and upon receiving it, the water soon disappeared from the glass to the man's crotch.

Second lesson learned: Always check first if the plastic cup is cracked.

From then on, I always check each and every of my plastic cups.