I knew this career would afford me numerous tales to write about. Cities, people, lifestyle; these are just a few topics of interest to most people who don't think about going from city to city every day for work. What didn't occur to me was how many low moral people are out there in this world that sneak through the system undetected. Predators. The true venom of this society that most don't see because they are stealth in their actions.
Yesterday, after a three hour delay in Los Angeles (for flight crews, delays sometimes mean possible higher level passenger intoxication because most Americans cannot entertain themselves for more than twenty minutes without a cocktail), a girl in her twenties boarded our aircraft. I noticed her when she boarded because of the way she was dressed. Very small shorts, boots and long hair - if she was holding a guitar she could have been in a video. She had long hair and was cute. Tall and cute. She moved slowly and didn't speak when I addressed her. No big deal, after a delay, many people are grumpy and don't want to answer a greeting, as if that non-verbally cues a flight attendant to report back to the company that they were one of the passengers unhappy the flight was delayed. We are mind-readers as well.
This flight landed briefly in San Jose, and I noticed the girl milling about the plane very slowly. Walking as if the plane were a cloud and she were an angel overlooking all the people and movements below. But, we were on the ground and she was in the aisle, in theory, stretching her legs between flights.
Leg 2: San Jose to Seattle:
After service, I notice a large man cornering a lady in the window seat and I slow down to look closely, because his actions look inappropriate. I look to see if his hands are anywhere they shouldn't be (because we are on a plane...not in a hotel room). I am not sure why some people think we can't see them when they sit in an airplane seat. If you can see us, we can see you - under the blanket, near the window, yes, even in the last row of the aircraft. We can see you!
I don't see anything pornographic, so I continue down the aisle.
Within ten minutes, a woman with a baby comes to the back of the aircraft. She is visibly uncomfortable and states, the man in the seat ahead of her seems to be kissing on the girl next to him and she believes the girl is not with him, and the man may be doing something wrong with the girl.
I think it may be the same couple I noticed earlier. My stomach gets that feeling.
We walk back to the couple and ask if everything is OK.
The girl seems sleepy. She waves her hand around. She doesn't really make eye contact. The man answers, everything is fine. We are fine, etc. The girl waves us off.
We move back. We involve the third flight attendant. Discuss the behavior of the girl from the time she first entered the aircraft. She is an adult. She has had wine. She was canoodling with another guy on the first leg, but he got off the plane in San Jose. This was really an odd situation. Other passengers had noticed her earlier and commented "she's out of it". Her behavior has been questionable since she got on the plane. But, this predator, with a ring on his finger, is obviously taking advantage of her state of being, or her youth, or her stupidity.
We decided to approach again and make sure she is safe. She does not want to leave her seat. She does not want to come to the back of the aircraft with us. She does not want anything to do with us or a safer envrironment. One of the flight attendants jokes, she's gonna be sorry tomorrow when she wakes up and see's this guys face. I thought, I would never want this to be my daughter. Drugged up and out of it, with some disgusting, middle aged pedophile feeling her up on a public mode of transportation. We continued to monitor the situation and the guy was undeterred. He kissed her and kept his arm around her for the remainder of the flight. Until the lights came on. When the lights came on, he sat upright and tryed to look upstanding. A pig in a suit, can you visualize it?
As the passengers exited the plane we kept an eye on them. She exited first. She seemed more composed. She was wearing sunglasses (at 11p) and walked off the plane as if she had no memory of any of us and the last hour of the flight. The man waited behind, let about fifteen people get between them and exited with his smarmy smile on his face and the knowledge of his cheap thrill.
Disturbing and disgusting, I thought about this scenario all the way to the hotel. How young women get taken advantage of every day. What this would have looked like at a college party instead of an airplane. What if he was her uncle...everyone has one. What if this was the end of a very average date. So many things went through my head, and then the result. What will happen? Nothing. The other flight attendants joked that the "good thing" about this situation is the girl probably won't remember. Maybe she won't, but I will.
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