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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.
....
“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.
....
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.
....
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.
....
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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