One Lump or Two Sir?....

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Airline toilets. Phew, not nice. Toil being the operative word.  We can go many flights without a toilet unpleasantry; sometimes it’s a few times a flight!  Our minds can become numb to the nasties we can face in there. There is the usual mess of course, but giving them a quick once over every half an hour on our checks can be a doddle.  We’re not talking about the Economy loos here, we mean the Club and First super specials that have the nice bit of lino on the floor and a flower in a little holder like the dash board of a Volkswagon Beetle. We do a bit of a wipe round the sink, pick up the little shreds of abandoned loo roll off the floor (which Jue calls shoe roll because someone always walks out of there with it stuck to their sole and tracks it in to our carpet.) We like to have a wipe round with some anti-bac especially on the door handles and flush button. A quick squirt of air-freshner never goes a miss either. Oh yes, and refill the amenities, not so bad! All this can be done while checking the smoke alarm, bin flap, water is running, flush is working, just the general things a Stewardess has to do. But every now and then as you pop in to get all this done, in return for your thoughtful and conscientious efforts in both hygiene and presentation, you’ll see displayed a hideous gift from someone too evil to clean up after him or herself. This is what I faced recently on a flight from Boston to London, and I’ve even had a complaint! Me! A hard-working Hostie who was trying to deal with things in a professional manner! Oooo sometimes you do your best but it’s just not good enough.

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Oh, you know this, we’ve told you before about how enduring and popular nasty toilet tales are. Every Crew Member has a toilet tale, like a friend of ours who opened an unlocked toilet door to find a man in a long robe standing on the toilet and peeing in the sink, although he said it was well aimed considering the bloke had to crouch over a bit. Our friend on a flight from Ghana went in and found three pairs of hand-washed underpants hanging on the baby-changing table that was clipped to the wall. Talk about washing your dirty laundry in public. There are always the cases of vomited filled sinks, someone’s dirty sanitary towel pushed in the hand towel dispenser, and you know the vile occasions we’ve described before. But this time was different. I was working the upper deck Club area, a pricey bit of real estate on our aircraft and somewhere you at least think the clientele would be a touch more circumspect. You’d think you would be safe up there, away from the messy masses in Economy. We have two loos upstairs on the 747’s, one at the rear of the cabin just across from the top of the stairs, and one by the Flight Deck door, which in a clever bit of design can be locked by our Pilots giving them the exclusive use of it by blocking off the cabin from the cubicle. But I was just doing my loo check after the meal service because at that time you can rest assured the toilets will get a bit of hammer. Everyone wants to settle down comfy after the meal; a nice empty bladder or colon (or both preferably) can really aid rest. You’ve got to time the check really well, so what I like to do is give the toilets a once over and get it out of the way before the final clear-in and sweep of the cabin, just before they’ve finished their coffees and liqueurs so the toilets are ready and waiting. So I opened the rear loo door to give it a spruce up, chatting away to Lynette in the galley right next to it and the first thing to hit me was the smell of, well, shit basically. But, and this is where it gets nasty, the toilet seat was up and clung to the side of the pan like a mountaineer on a difficult assent, was a huge long dollop of nauseating ginger poo. I just felt the retch arrive instantly. I felt water squirt in to my mouth and I had to clamp my lips downwards to prevent a chuck-up. It took three seconds to get it under control. Then I got furious.

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“Lynette, have you seen this, look what some dirty bugger has left us!” and she peeped as well and had to put her hand to mouth as her gorge rose and said “Oh the dirty bastards, that is absolutely disgusting!” and Lynette is posh so swearing on her sounds dead funny. “Get us a pot of boiling water pet, I’m going to have to go in! Get me some gloves as well.” I said. I was brave, I was ready but I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t make me throw up. It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do and that somebody was me. You find it, you finish it. Now, I can hear you asking Dear Passengers, why I didn’t just reach across and flush the toilet again? At home with a nice watery cascader of a loo with a cistern and a ball cock you could do that very thing. But not on an aircraft vacuum flush model, because as efficient as they are as whipping away their contents at 70mph, they are useless with cling-ons as they are all suck and no rinse. They are quite literally crap at dislodging an insistent, adhesive turd. I had a trial flush, trying not to breathe or look at it, using a bit of tissue on my finger to press the button, but despite the resounding whoosh and slurp of the mechanism the amber gambler was not dislodged one millimetre. It would be there till doomsday unless dealt with properly. Whoever had done this had obviously had a few attempts to flush it; there was no used toilet paper in the pan for instance, so some of the befouling had been dealt with. But they must have given up, then just sneaked out and left it to fester for someone else to deal with. I glanced down the cabin. Which one of you repulsive devils did this I thought and gave them all a dirty look for good measure. One chap did glance round at that moment and I was convinced I saw a fearful look in his eye. I decided to put the blame on him; you have to have somewhere to vent your frustrations. Although to be honest, he could have just been checking if there was a queue.

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While Lynette filled a hot jug I kept the door slightly open from inside with my foot, bracing myself for the horrible task, and not wanting to be left completely alone with the smelly thing. Suddenly the door was yanked open and there stood a big man in a blue shirt, the grumpy fella in 63k, if I’m not mistaken. Behind him were two more bog botherers coming to wait, but he looked the most determined. “You mind?” he asked hotly “I wanna to go in there!” Woooo, very curt, very rude. “Just a moment Sir, it just needs a little clean. Could you please use the toilet at the front of the cabin?” “NO! I can’t, it’s locked off! Can you get oudda my way!” Right, how bloody rude I thought, but then I saw he did have a bit of perspiration on his upper lip and he looked unwell. Lynette arrived with the tea pot of hot water and gloves at that second and just as I reached to get them saying “Sir, just a moment, I just need to…..don’t come in here, really Sir, it will put you off ginger cake for life.” He pushed past me, pushed me out and slammed and locked the door! “Awww can you believe that! Honestly Lynette! He could see I was trying to sort it out!” I hissed and she sagely nodded and muttered while the other two passengers stared at us. Then, hurrah! Just a few seconds later we all heard clearly the bark of a man who was losing his Stilton, port and grapes. I’d served him cheese board earlier; he’d had a right belly full. Well, not any more, we smirked at each other. “Oh dear.” whispered Lynette “is he throwing up on that dump? How very offensive!” I swear Readers, I absolutely pissed laughing, I had to turn away.  I slopped the boiling water out of the spout on to my shoes.  It sealed the deal for me when one of the waiting passengers said “I hope he didn’t have the fish.” And not ten seconds in to it, Jue here came smiling up the stairs, and Lynette had to divert her and tell her the tale in the galley. (She’s agreeing here that she thought it was fabulous!) But I had to wait by the loo for him to come out, it was going to need a double clean after this event, so I when I’d composed myself I asked the queuers politely if they minded waiting for the other toilet, it was surely obvious I was going to have to deal with the room of doom. Plus we still had a final clear in to do so this standing around with a hot pot was really wasting my time. This is a premium cabin, they do not like to sit with dirty plates in front of them when the service flow goes to hell. You could be giving the kiss of life and someone would be put out that we’d not been down and collected a used coffee cup.

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So when Blue Shirt finally came out, sweating a bit under the armpits, I foolishly asked if he was ok. “That bathroom is an absolute disgrace! What the hell!” and he wouldn’t let me answer, he just marched in the galley, whisking the curtain back and demanding water from an startled Julie, who was preparing to go out on the cart with Lynette and finish the service, good kind friend that she is. I pushed open the toilet door and sure enough, VILE! Vomit all over the pan. That’s another thing that our toilets can’t deal with. I sloshed and rinsed all the horrible mess away, pressing the flush repeatedly. Still, to my annoyance, the two passengers continued to hover around when they could see it was a disaster zone. As I attempted to send them away to wait for the other toilet to become vacant, they just shuffled and shrugged, vacant indeed! They do annoy me when they can see you are BUSY and then some! Still they wait like refugees at a Red Cross centre. For two pins I would happily have blocked off the toilet for the rest of the flight, but with our Pilots needing the front one it would have left us short. One toilet between 20 is not a bad ratio, but Club passengers expect more and get it. If you do get a dodgy toilet and you direct them down the stairs to the other lavs some of them get right put out. You’d honestly think they’d enjoy the stroll; it would help with their veins and DVT at the least.

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So that was the funny for that flight, and it was worth it. Lynette apologised to the guy but he wasn’t having it. She made him a ginger tea to settle his stomach, tried to oblige him, Jue even flirted and fussed him but he was full of hell all flight. Then weeks later we found out he had complained, emailed in waving his Silver frequent flyer card around and lambasting us, well me in particular, for the state of the toilet that had actually made him physically sick. He was incensed that I’d made the crack about the ginger cake, and he said he had heard us laughing at his predicament. But he weakened his case by also complaining about everything from check-in to catering to the queues at immigration to the wait for baggage. Fortunately our part was lost in the tirade and with a brief, but sweetly baffled explanation I dodged a bollocking. Ingeniously I added that I had offered ginger ale for his nausea and that he must have misunderstood my kindness. And we were chatting and laughing with other passengers as customer service requires, but he had obviously been feeling paranoid about the noise he was making in the loo and taken it as an affront. Jue thought that was a stroke of genius! But it goes to show that trying your best and doing your damnedest in unpleasant circumstances can backfire on you. Especially when some selfish person has left their backfire all over the place for you to clean up!

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Myebook - Airportal 6

You can never say we don't work hard at our hobbies! Another Airportal for you people!

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Well, you know how mad and busy we've been since it all kicked off with the book?  We realize now just how dammed lazy we used to be!  We'd get back from a trip, kick off our shoes, spark up a joint, chill all day, party all night, shop, see friends and family, pretend we had an interest in keeping fit, enjoy a great time with our gorgeous men, pack our cases and off we'd go again.  It was a life of Riley!  Whoever Riley is, we're not sure, but they must have been a lazy bugger too to be so notorious.   Since the summer before last, when we started messing on writing funny stories of our lives, we've been balls out.  It's not easy this book writing lark, it's much harder work that we thought, we never stop!    Still, we're having fun, we never expected all this!  It's been brilliant, and we've got our big announcement next week!  Where we are getting the energy we'll never know.  We'd say coke, but we haven't got the time to take it!

Shall we tell you all a couple of funny things that have happened lately?  Jue has had a drama.  It was hilarious.  (For me of course, not so for her, but she really did see the funny side too, she just wished she wasn't on the receiving end).  We were in Switzerland last weekend, and we went because our fab mate Mr. Mike invited us, you may know him from our page, he is quite literally a top friend in everyway!  Well, he was having a party for his birthday and celebrating getting Swiss DJ of the year!  Hurray!   We jetted over on Saturday in to Zurich, and went to the party in Berne in a club called Liquid.  It was FAB!!!!  You know we love and adore dance music, but with all the great people there that we know, it was just extra special.  Jue and I were dancing up on the stage, loving the club and the view we were getting across the packed dancefloor, lights flashing, music pulsing, Mike rocking away behind the decks, all in all having a great time, singing our heads off and jumping around like nutters.  Mike has a new track called "Rise Up" and it's a belter, you'll be hearing it all summer.   It was all going great when Jue suddenly "coggled over" which is a North Eastern phrase for when your heel goes and makes you buckle to the side. (we've also heard it called "cruckle over" in Rochdale, but it's much the same thing.)  I just thought she'd had a sherry to many and lost her footing, when suddenly I trod on something that made me go over too, and you know what it's like, you can't compute these things when under the influence of party preferentials.  We stumbled together and nearly fell in to the crowd underneath us, which was as scary for them as it was us, because they were passing by four foot below us on a revolving dance floor.  We'd have bloody flattened them.  

We just managed to stay on the stage, and I kicked the offending trip hazard away.  Jue shouted "Oooo Lizzy! Me shoe! Me shoe!"  I thought, "What's she on about, she's drunk!" but then I looked down and saw the heel of her stiletto going past on the white flashing panel of the floor between people's feet, where the clubbers were also treading on it and kicking it round.  When I looked at her shoe, the heel had indeed completely snapped off, her new favourite pair too.  In her confusion she was still dancing, but trying to put her foot down for support, so the winkle picker front was poked up and she was hobbling round like Hinge and Brackett.  It was hilarious, and all I could think was "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille!"  I had to jump down off the stage and scrabble about on the dance floor to retrieve the heel, and everyone kept on dancing and kicking it about.  It took two full revolutions before I got it in sight.  I was pissing myself laughing, and had to crawl round on hands and knees until I could get it back.  None of the trendy Swiss youngsters on the dance floor had a clue what I was doing and kept trying to help me up.  I was absolutely bad laughing.

Well, I helped Jue off the stage and in to the DJ's room and I was still hooting with laughter at her predicament.  It was too far back to the hotel and she only had her flat boots with her, so they would have been no good with her evening dress, she'd have looked like a farm yacker.   We came up with a plan though, and we thought it would work a treat.  We went to the toilet and stood chewing loads of pieces of gum in a frenzy until we had enough to stick it back on, then we tried to dry the shoe under the hand dryer to make the gum go hard.  First step she took she wobbled again and it fell off.  We chewed and chewed till our poor jaws were aching and eventually we got enough put on to make it stay.  It was still dead bendy, but it would do if she was careful.  Readers, she had to dance with one foot pinned to the floor and the weight only on the ball of her foot, and that in itself was cracking me up.   She looked like a ballerina in a kiddies jewellry box, one leg was rigid and the other was going like the clappers.  God love her for trying though.  I do love getting the giggles with her like that.  After a few minutes we gave up and went to sit down out the back, with the Dj's,  there was no way it was going to work.  We got to see the club though on a screen and had a nice chair dance, which is always very comfortable, especially at our ages!  She's saying now that it was a relief to sit down, because she'd forgotten her gel insoles and was just starting to be in agony, girls you know the pain.   People think we're smiling at them, but really we're grimacing with the torture.  Why do we do it?  Thank you Lily Allen, ball gown and trainers for us from now on!  Never mind the door policy, it's the fashion.

So we had a brill night, made everyone laugh with the shoe happening, and back at the hotel, Jue wrapped the shoe up in a carrier bag determined to have it repaired.  Really there was no way, the black suede was covered in chewy and it smelt really minty, but she wouldn't throw them out, she loves them too much.  Next day after all this commotion, we were at security at the airport, and she got her wheelie bag searched.  Out came the carrier and they paid an awful lot of interest to the white stuff coming out of the heel of her shoe.  We nearly missed our flight explaining that it was chewy gum.  They got a supervisor, and discussed it among themselves for ages in French, while me and Jue showed our airline passes and tried to convince them she wasn't a shoe bomber.   They were very suspicious indeed.  We literally made the flight with seconds to spare.  She is still really upset about the shoes, they were expensive and gorgeous but they are ruined.  She says she was mad to let me persuade her to sick them with Wrigleys, and she wished she'd waited and got them repaired properly.  It's only two weeks since we were in New York shoe shopping, and these were the very shoes of her dreams, first time on.  She's gutted. 

Oh yes!  Something else mad happened there too, connected with shoes.  It was bitterly cold and icy, but we had a stroll along Fifth Avenue to get a bite of lunch and have a mosey round the shops.  We were of course really on auto scan for any really lovely shoes to buy, all girls do this and since Sex and the City brought shoes and New York together, it really is the best place.  We don't for go for the Manolos though, way too dear.  We get fab copies in the Far East, sorry Mr. Blahnik but we do!  Don't charge so much and we won't!   We'd been shopping for hours, got a couple of pairs each, and we all in all very chuffed with our purchases and having a nice day.  On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to buy some soup from a street vendor, and when Jue rummaged in her bag for her purse, we both saw she had a gorgeous strappy sandal hanging off her bag.  How long she'd been strolling round with it dangling, we don't know, it could have been there hours.  Just the one beautiful sling back sandal, shame of shames, but we had absolutely no idea where it had come from.  We did laugh, and the little Thai lady running the soup stall was highly amused and kept shouting "Chue, one Chue!  You have just one Chue but two feets!!!!! hahahahaha!!!!"  We roared, she was dead funny!   We'd been in about twelve shops, tried on about twenty pairs each (which is a pain when you have to keep taking winter boots off) but neither of us remembered this shoe!  There was no way we were going to back track, it was just too cold and too far and way too late.  So very sorry to you shoe shop owner, whoever you are.  Jue has a beautiful silver coloured satin sandal with a five inch heel, covered in diamante with a gorgeous diamond clip that fastens down the side.  Dream shoe of divine ridiculousness!  It's now on the side in her room as a display piece!