What a ride

Yesterday I flew home. So sad, I miss my grand baby and the beautiful weather in her state. To make up for my sadness I had quite the interesting trip home.

Through a matter in interesting circumstances I happened to be seated in the waiting area between two ladies. Turns out one of them was going to my hometown to visit her cousin. She and I graduated from the same high school, eight years apart. She had lived in Kansas City for most of her adult life and was also an elementary teacher. When she retired she moved to Colorado, tired of the city. I told her my maiden name and she recalled that my aunt had been her teacher in Country School! She called her cousin and her cousin knew my father.

Small World.

Then when we were getting ready to board we discovered we were seat mates. We chatted the entire flight home and time flew by, literally.

However the funniest part of my flight was the attendant. Lovely woman, but I wonder if it was her first flight. I was under the impression that to "graduate" from 'flight attendant school' you would need to have the protocol memorized.

I was wrong.

She read from the manual. Not a sheet of paper, but the large, cumbersome, manual.

She stumbled over the text, misreading words. As a former teacher I wondered if she had a reading problem, then I wondered if she was drunk.

She mispronounced Moline first as Molee, then Mo-line (long i). Finally when she was passing out drinks a passenger set her straight and when we were ready to land, she finally got it right. We all clapped.

Also when she was going over the stats, like how long the flight, she stammered over the details and a passenger called out the time, proving WE had listened to the pilot who spoke RIGHT prior to her. She did admit she didn't listen to the pilot. Really? Admit that to us?

But she was friendly and when she came by for drinks my seat mate told her she had a great smile. The attendant laughed and said THAT she could do easily!

Philosophically my seat mate turned to me and said, "This just proves that with a smile and a sense of humor you can overcome almost anything and people will forgive you your errors."

I think I had just experienced the truth of that statement.

So go forward today with a smile and a willingness to laugh at yourself.