Confessions of a Fed-Up Flight Attendant #9 – Peeing in Cups & Breastfeeding Cats

by Adam Last updated August 4, 2014

I know more than one fellow flight attendant who has had the uncomfortable situation of having to tell a woman that she can’t breastfeed her … cat! You read that right: Breastfeeding. A. Cat. And this isn’t an isolated incident. There are all types of people out there, and some of them are very “interesting.” Their response is always the same: “I’m just feeding my ‘baby.’” But it’s not a baby, it’s a cat!

Betty continues spilling her secrets. Thanks to Mark from Yahoo! for sharing a new weekly series called “Confessions of A Fed-Up Flight Attendant” written by “Betty”. Below is the eighth entry from the series, you can check out the full post here and a new one each Monday.

I’m sure as a passenger you’re not fond of sitting near a screaming baby or hyped-up child who keeps kicking the seat. But for us crew members, children are not much of a problem. Lots of times they are my favorite passengers — because they are so darn cute! It’s the parents who cause the problems. Sometimes their wackiness is really the worst. And sometimes “parents” aren’t even parents. I know more than one fellow flight attendant who has had the uncomfortable situation of having to tell a woman that she can’t breastfeed her … cat! You read that right: Breastfeeding. A. Cat. And this isn’t an isolated incident. There are all types of people out there, and some of them are very “interesting.” Their response is always the same: “I’m just feeding my ‘baby.” But it’s not a baby, it’s a cat!

When working the beverage cart, my co-worker and I have a way of talking with each other when we don’t want passengers to notice us — “ventriloquist style,” we call it, out of the side of our mouths, not really moving our lips — and like the “cat-cident,” this was definitely another one of those times. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” my colleague said, raising her eyebrows and pointing with her eyes to the mother and son at the window. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw the boy standing on the seat naked, his mother holding him as he peed into one of our plastic beverage cups. I don’t know if she didn’t have time to get to the bathroom or simply didn’t want to get up. It was just wrong on many levels. One thing I knew for sure is that when we went to pick up trash, she would be handing that glass full of amber liquid (that isn’t apple juice) back to us. My friend on the other side of the cart suggested (out the side of her mouth) that we have the male flight attendant who hadn’t seen what just happened to pick up the trash.

Everyone wants to get some sleep on an all-night flight, and passengers are always coming up with crazy ways to increase their personal space to do so. My fellow crew members know I get a kick out of the wacky things passengers do, so I get a call in first class that there is something I have to see in the coach cabin. I went to investigate down the dark aisle of the airplane. I start seeing something in the aisle, I couldn’t make it out at first, but as I got closer I see it’s a baby asleep face-up in the middle of the aisle. I immediately tell the mother that she can’t put her baby in the aisle, because someone will step on and crush the baby. Can you imagine the horror of such a thing! She casually answered that she needed the baby to get some sleep and the baby was more comfortable in the aisle. Again I explained it’s too dangerous to leave her baby for people to trample on. She said she would watch to make sure people wouldn’t crush the baby. I tested her theory by asking what happens if she falls asleep? Finally, reluctantly, and with a scowl on her face, she picked up the baby. She acted like I was inconveniencing her by not letting her baby become aisle kill! Ack. #parents

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Adam

Adam is the proud Founder and CEO of both Point Me to the Plane and point.me. An international consultant turned TV programming strategist, Adam currently works full-time on both websites. His obsession with points and miles dates back to his freshman year at college. After browsing Flyertalk and Mileage Workshop, Adam pulled the trigger and signed up for his first Citibank AAdvantage credit card and MCI phone line (yes, landlines still existed). Back then, both deals were churnable and in no time at all, the college freshman had enough miles to travel to Europe and Asia in First Class for free, multiple times. Needless to say, he was hooked! Fast forward a few years and Adam of course ended up in a career with a heavy travel requirement…which meant extra miles for awards! As his colleagues and friends started to hear about and see pictures from his trips, they wanted in on the secret and Adam began to assist them with their bookings, Juicy Miles was born. At the same time, Adam started an email newsletter to prevent those less obsessed co-workers from squandering their point collection opportunities. The bi-weekly email covered everything from upcoming promotions, guidance on maximizing points, and redemption advice. The distribution quickly expanded outside the office and Point Me to the Plane became a BoardingArea blog.