lou-eee-veille

The NCAA basketball tournament is starting...out of Selection Sunday came all the teams and brackets and the overall number one seed is Louisville. Not a big basketball fan myself, I will start watching college now, and I don't watch pro at all...it happens to be the one sport I know the most about, having been the scorekeeper for both the JV and Varsity teams at my HS (I was a math nerd, what can I say...) but for some reason I just don't get the same enjoyment from watching that as I do football or baseball.

So what's the point of the above? Well, I don't really have one, but having Louisville selected as the number one made me think of the city itself, and all my visits there, and unfortunately it also made me remember one particular flight into Louisville, so I thought I would share.

In a former life, I was a flight attendant for a regional airline. We had a few "big jets" 737s and F100s, but the majority of our fleet was made up of "baby jets," 50 seat regional jets that required only one flight attendant. Upon completing my training I jumped at the chance to work on the big jets and set out on my first trip to Boston...it was AWFUL...I was the junior FA paired with two nasty bitches (one male, one female) and after that trip, despite giving up overnights in Orlando, NY, and Boston, I vowed to NEVER work on a big jet again, if I could help it. For the most part I was able to do that, and as a result spent most of my overnights in places like Columbus, Rochester, Indianapolis, Buffalo and you guessed it, Louisville.

Well, at the start of what turned into the "trip from hell" I was feelin' pretty damn good...I had just recently had my braces removed so my teeth were straight and pretty, I had traded in my uniform pants for skirts, having lost 15 pounds the first month of flying (15 hour days, running up and down airplanes and airports, with no time to eat will do that), and I had a new pair of shoes...I was hot shit, or so I thought.

I greeted my crew at the airplane and was informed we were delayed into "Lou-eee-veille" and to sit tight. The captain used the, grate on my very last nerve, "Lou-eee-veille" pronunciation of the city rather than the "proper" "Lou-ah-vll" pronunciation and EVERY flight I would have a local tell ME to tell the captain that he sounded like a jackass...I never told him, preferring to snicker whenever he announced our arrival into "Lou-eee-veille." Turns out we were delayed due to thunderstorms around the area. For some reason that area gets a lot of thunderstorms, even in winter, and we were forever delayed. I plopped myself down in the second row and put up my feet on the seat in front of me. "New shoes?" asked the captain, "Yes," I said, surprised he had noticed (!) "Yeah, and they were a steal at $49, but you might wanna take the price stickers off the bottom if you are gonna keep puttin' your feet up like that." Duh, "Oh, yeah...thanks."

We finally got off the ground, the "Lou-eee-veille" capt, very quiet first officer, me and my new shoes, and NINE passengers. I figured I was in for a nice easy flight, despite the warnings from the captain that it would be a bumpy ride. Thirty minutes into the flight it gets NASTY...the plane was getting tossed around the sky and I strapped into my jumpseat and announced there would be no service. Five minutes later the call button dinged...are you f*ckin' kidding me...I unstrapped myself, plastered on a smile, and lurched to the back of the plane, holding onto seat backs and trying my best to stay upright. Turns out our youngest passenger had just thrown up and mama needed some help...OK, if she asked me for a coffee I think I would have slapped her (and YES, that happened...always amazed me some IDIOT would ask for HOT coffee when we cancelled service due to turbulence).

Ok, not gonna go into the blow by blow of the next thirty minutes or so, but lets just say; smell travels in a "baby jet," and the turbulence was BAD, and by the time we were headed down to the ground in our final descent, EIGHT of our nine passengers had all gotten sick. Somehow I managed not to, but I wanted to die. The only hold out, a teenage girl, traveling alone and sitting in the first row (seat 1C, yes, I remember), asked me if we were gonna be landing soon, cuz she was scared and didn't feel very good. Sitting in my jumpseat, I was about 4 inches away from and facing those passengers sitting in the first row, and I always had the most "interesting" conversations on take-off and landing when I had no choice but to sit there. As we touched down, well slammed down, the girl in 1C started to retch...and while I think she tried not to, given our close quarters she had no choice, and she THREW UP on my brand new shoes.

"Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to Lou-ee-veille, sorry about the rough ride."

So, regardless of how the basketball team does in the tournament, Louisville will forever be known, to me, as "the city where I had a girl throw up on my brand new shoes."


Happy St. Patty's Day!!!!