Everything I write ends up turning into an exercise in imagining a world wherein every single person puts other people first because I see it happen often enough to know it’s within the realm of possibility
I am a flight attendant. (I feel the need to specify this because the last time one of my work-related posts left my little neighborhood on here, many people forgot how context clues work.) Last week, a flight I was working had one of the strangest delays I’ve ever seen. The flight from Philly to Detroit generally takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. We were roughly 30 minutes from Detroit when the plane ran out of gas and we had to make a pit stop in the middle of Ohio. (Other things happened that led to us running out of gas but they aren’t important.)
The plane was full. Almost 100 people, everyone tired from a long day of traveling, which is already a stressful experience. And now we’re all stuck in the middle of Ohio, a place no one ever wants to be, with no clue as to when we might finally reach our destination. I had already done the drink service and essentially worked a 1.5 hour flight, which is tiring, and the passengers are all tired as well. Everyone’s hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, squished together in a huge metal tube, baking in the sun. All of the ingredients were there to make this a shitty day. We ended up sitting on the ground for another hour and a half before we could fly the last 30 minutes. A 2 hour flight turned into 4. And it was one of the best flights I’ve ever worked.
Sitting the closest to my jumpseat in the back row of the plane were: a customer service rep for my airline on her way to a funeral; an 11 year old unaccompanied minor (kid flying alone); a 20 year old auditioning for a radio show; and a young new dad traveling for the first time with his infant daughter. Even before we’d left Philly, there was a little sense of comraderie, the kind you get whenever you’re sharing an experience as a group. But the moment it became apparent that our “pit stop” was going to take much longer than anticipated, we suddenly became a group of survivors in some apocalypse movie–but instead of getting suspicious of each other, we played games and passed out pretzels.
When I tell yall we literally had some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a flight…the 11 year old girl was a chatterbox and funny as hell. At one point I gave her the phone and she started telling jokes over the intercom. The customer service rep took care of her while I helped the other passengers. We found out about the 20 year old’s audition, and I gave him the phone next so he could practice his intros. We all took turn holding the baby (8 months and so well behaved!) and of course every mom gave the dad some advice. My other flight attendant and I quizzed everyone on the safety demo, with anyone who remembered the answers winning extra snacks. There were two people celebrating birthdays, so we all sang and clapped. 100 people (loudly, and very badly) singing happy birthday for two strangers. A woman in first class had an emotional support dog, and we all took turns holding him too.
I’d already done a beverage service on our way to Detroit, but the pilots said the route given to us would add another hour to our flight, so I decided to do a second one. Except, only three rows in, the captain made an announcement: he’d worked his magic and gotten us some short cuts. We would now be landing in Detroit in 15 minutes. I now had to do a full beverage service in about 10 minutes (this is impossible). I don’t know what my face looked like, but the passengers must have been able to tell. They all leapt into action. Two of them went down the aisle collecting drink orders, and then carried drinks to the others as I poured like I was in the fast and furious series, if they were about pouring soda instead of stealing cars. We got everyone served within 7 minutes. When we landed, everyone cheered. We knew each other’s names. Many people had exchanged numbers. I know a handful had plans to carpool.
At the end of that trip, I was talking to my roommate (also a flight attendant) and mentioned the 1.5 hour onboard delay. He said “God, that must have sucked.” He was shocked when I said it really, really didn’t.
“that’s what’s so frustrating about how much the world sucks you get moments of grace you get glimpses into how good we all are when we try it carries you through the dark times but it doesn’t answer the fucking question of why the fuck are we having so many dark times”
Holy shit those tags are raw
yes all of this
we *care* for each other, deep down. we want others to have a good day, to have a good life… and that’s how humanity got so successful as a species.
the selfish jerks are a minority. don’t let them decide for everyone.
This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees’ range has shrunk by 90%.
(my own photos)
Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.
Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would’ve penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you’ve observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.
You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:
I can’t believe straight people think butch lesbians are scary. I see a butch lesbian and I’m immediately like I would trust you with my life
remember this? waaay back in like, Day 7 of the pandemic, this image of a CDC staff member went viral when this guy said “thank god there’s a lesbian with a lanyard, we’re saved.”
The DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) just successfully slammed into Dimorphos, which is the moonlet of the asteroid Didymos (also affectionately called Didymoon). Over the next few days astronomers around the world will observe Didymos and Dimorphos to see if there has been a change in orbit from the latter. This is humanity’s first real attempt at altering the course of a “killer” asteroid, even if this one isn’t hazardous to us.
remember way back in 2006 when the wii first came out and then the entirety of the world forgot how to hold onto something with a firm grasp so much that nintendo had to make a shock absorbing condom just so that tvs wouldnt get destroyed when people would end up sending this thing flying at their tvs at 900 miles per hour
A lot of those incidents were with Wii Bowling, which to me implies that people didn’t so much forget to how to hold something, as they forgot they weren’t holding a bowling ball and weren’t in a bowling alley.
Is it just me or does having a positive interaction with a stranger scratch a very particular itch? I think it’s the reassurance that the world is not split solely into people who already love you and people who never will.
50 years from today someone will tear out this kitchen. And this cabinet which fills out and empty space will get the whole neighborhood on their feet. I wish I could travel in time to see the face expression of that poor guy that will pull the countertop off of that cabinet.
what’s important to note and missing from the “headline” tweet is that they simultaneously constructed additional good public transit to the public transit already in the city (bus rapid transit, train stations). Just removing highway alone isn’t going to make traffic better, the bigger part of the story is that they improved public transportation. And the current mayor wants to do more - cyclist lanes and reinstate a tram system
to this day i cannot BELIEVE aang called up and blew off like nine avatars just because they didnt offer any vegan options to ending the war
roku: my best friend assaulted me as a senior citizen :(
kyoshi: sometimes some murder is OK
kuruk: just punch people that disagree with you
aang: okay i’m starting to think that none of you took this avatar thing seriously
You’re not wrong
Aang when he is told he’s the Avatar at age 12: *has a melt down because he understands the seriousness of this function and the consequences his new responsibilities will have on his personal life*
other Avatars at age 16: I’m the avatar? Cool! Hey look it comes with a glowing eyes feature!
aang: fuck this noise, i’ll get advice from the last air nomad avatar
yangchen: i gave up that hippie bullshit first chance i got, i love murder
going through my microsoft word archives is great fun because i always find the wildest shit in there and by “the wildest shit” i mean the time i tried to rewrite the entire bible from scratch at the age of eleven and a half
“And so Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and Eve turned to Adam and said, 'Nice going, loser.‘”
iconic
whilst you were listening to avril lavigne, i learned the way of the Lord
had a dream last night where marbles were back en vogue and everyone carried their marbles around in cute little pouches that they’d clip onto their backpacks or purse straps or belt loops so they’d always have their marbles on them and your marbles were deeply personal objects that showcased your individual personality and people would get really passionate and proud of them and playing for keeps was a deeply serious and honor-bound affair and i played a game with an old man while waiting for a bus and he told me how he met his wife while playing in a for-keeps tournament and in a miracle shot he knocked out her most precious marble a brilliant sparkling green one with an inside like a geode and when he looked up he found she was crying at its loss and so right there on the spot he proposed to her so that she could divorce him and take it back in the divorce “but in the end,” he told me, “she kept me and the marble” and i awoke teary and resentful to be ripped from a fleeting world that had found for itself such a small and beautiful peace
i was curious what the other side of the moon looked like so i googled it and
i’m so glad we got the side we did the moon’s ass ugly
You’re so rude to Miss Moon the reason her ass is so fucked up is cuz she’s protecting us from meteors. Her face is beautiful so her ass can be disgusting and we can be safe.
I love getting unaccompanied minors (kids flying alone) who so clearly just. Don’t want to be here lol. Sometimes I get to know a little of their story, like their parents are divorced, or a family member died and they’re heading to the funeral, but usually they just don’t want to talk about it and that’s fine. But I always treat the flight like it’s a challenge to make them smile. I offer them snacks and soda but that’s never enough, that’s whatever, they could get those from an airport vending machine. Chump change. So then I tell the worst jokes. Just the most embarrassing, kindergarten teacher, annoying dad jokes you can think of. And those always get a groan, or a “Seriously??” And that’s my in! Now I can say “Why, what’s your idea of a good joke? No, come on hotshot, make your best joke, let’s see it.” And they hem and they haw but of course they eventually tell me their very best joke because kids are little competitive comedy goldmines. And it’s always super funny, so I laugh, and that’s where they slip up. Because you know what you almost always do when your joke successfully makes someone laugh? You smile. And I’m like. Gotcha. Rookie move. Now you’re going to end up having a good time in spite of yourself. I win.
Did this with an 11yo u.m. today and he said “What did the ghost say to the other ghost?” And I said “What?” “Nothing. Ghosts aren’t real.”
I’m literally a flight attendant, offering snacks and drinks is my job
