Usually you hear about flight attendants who are disgruntled because of their latest union contract, or so ticked off at a passenger that they grab a can of beer and deploy the emergency exit slide only to get their own reality show. It’s not too often you hear about the good things these diplomats of the sky do everyday to keep passengers safe, entertained and well hydrated. So, I thought I’d share an incident that happened to me just moments ago and how a flight attendant went above and beyond for a passenger.
I was on US Airways flight 990 from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Charlotte, NC. I settled in, whipped out the iPad and watched the season seven finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which was great by the way – Seinfeld fans must see it). When it was over, I pulled my ear buds out only to see that the rubber nub from the one in my right ear was missing. I checked the seat and the area around me and couldn’t find it. I stupidly stuck my finger in my ear to see if it was there, and bingo…. it was. And now I pushed it farther down into my ear canal and the pressure and pain started to build.
I popped into the lavatory to see if I could see anything in the mirror and to relieve myself from the three pomegranite martinis I had during the flight. My attempts at sticking my fat fingers in my ear to remove this small piece of rubber proved fruitless and only made matters worse. I exited and sheepishly asked Darlene, the flight attendant, if she would look in my ear and see if she could see this thing. Her comment was, “wow that’s really in there.”
“I have a pair of tweezers and a flashlight,” she said. “Go for it,” was my response.
With the skill of a trained surgeon she put the flashlight in her mouth, grabbed my ear and tweezed the rubber nub out of my ear much to my relief. We had a good laugh as a fellow passenger stared at us and said, “did you just pull that from his ear?” We joked about US Airways sending my HMO a bill and had a good laugh about this crazy situation.
Thanks to Darlene for going above and beyond to help out. I’m heaving over to my friend Flavio’s eCommerce store, earphonesolutions.com, to buy a new pair of ear buds.