The Rerouted Skytress

My second trip back flying this month I was sitting in the crew lounge working on my blog. I could hear two Skytresses near me talking. As the one Skytress was about to turn to go back to her chair, the other Skytress asked her what her name was. The Skytress replied, “Eileen”. I abruptly stopped typing and immediately looked up. For a moment, it was if Big Foot had made eye contact with the Loch Ness Monster. I curiously watched the Skytress sit down two chairs from me. You think I would have hesitated to tell her my name is Eileen, too. Nope. I didn’t. Rarely do I ever meet anyone that is named Eileen. When I spoke up and told the Skytress that my name is Eileen, she looked at me like the Loch Nest Monster had just spotted Big Foot. Of course, she asked me if I spelled my name E-i-l-e-e-n. If your name is Eileen, you would completely understand this. There are numerous spellings of our name. However, when you spell your name Eileen,…this without a doubt is the only acceptable spelling. We both chuckled after the Skytress asked me how I spell my name. Then we laughed even more when she said she didn’t like having this name as a child. I understood completely. We couldn’t buy any personalized items off the shelf. Everything had to be specially made. I used to wish my name was Kathleen when I was a child. It was Irish,…and you could always purchase a name tag for your bike at the store. She asked me if I knew Eileen meant, “light”. I smiled because I did. I told the Skytress I was named after my Mom’s sister. I told her I have several friends with the middle name Eileen. I, also told her, I’ve flown with many pilots who had Aunts named Eileen. My sister’s roommate in college was Eileen, too. But, I have never flown with another Eileen. She hadn’t either. However, she could name several Skytress from our airline with our name. I confessed to her I looked at the list of Skytresses in the retirement yearbook last week. The name list was complied using the first names in alphabetical order. I saw there were seven people named Eileen retiring. I was shocked. More importantly, I was happy. I now knew there are seven more Eileen’s out there lighting up the world.

One day I was flying from Detroit to Chicago. A Skytress for a regional airline came on board. She was deadheading to Chicago to work another flight. When she went to stow her bags her boarding card fell to the floor. I picked the ticket up and asked her if she would like her boarding card back. She said she didn’t need it. So I told her I would throw it away. As I was heading back to the galley, I looked at the boarding card to see the Skytress’ name. She was a very sweet young lady and I wanted to acknowledge her later using her first name. When I looked at her name I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. Her name was Sparkle Mars. What a happy name. I decided her name could be an expression someone would say to another person to have a great day. “Have a Sparkle Mars kind of day!” A person couldn’t help but smile after hearing this. I took a picture of the boarding card and texted it to Ron. I told him this was the name of a cute regional airline Skytress on my flight. I knew he would appreciate her name. Ron had a great sense of humor. And Ron loved astronomy. It was definitely a “twofer”. I told him to have a Sparkle Mars kind of day, because I was going to have one. He texted me back several smiling emojis. My new happy expression was already working magnificently.

I’m sure many of you will remember the red courtesy phones in the airports. Passengers were to pick the phone up to respond to a message from the airline. Passengers could also use the phone to page for someone in the airport. One day my crew and I were in Dallas on a sit. We didn’t want to go to the crew lounge and we didn’t want to go eat. We decided we would sit in the gate area and people watch. While we were sitting in the gate area, the airport PA system was paging for multiple passengers to pick up the red courtesy phone for a message. I told my crew I had once watched a comedian who did a skit about paging people with funny names in the hospital. This sparked something in my crew. We decided to page a few people, too. We wrestled with a few names. Eventually, our Skytress In-Charge went to the courtesy phone and paged Jim Shoe. Then we sat and waited. Over the airport PA we heard….”Passenger Shoe. Passenger Jim Shoe please pick up the red courtesy phone for a message”. We were beside ourselves laughing. We wondered how many people would get “gym shoe”? We knew someone must have heard the page and laughed. Then we paged Seymour Butts. We couldn’t control ourselves. We doubled over in our seats. The page for Seymour Butts and Jim Shoe had us four Skytresses cackling as passengers walked by. The passengers couldn’t help but smiled at us having a good time. Little did they know what we were up to. We then paged for Robin Banks. The best thing about the red courtesy phone was the airline would page the passengers for several minutes. To our delight, Jim Shoe and Seymour Butts and Robin Banks echoed throughout the Dallas airport. We figured the lady announcing the names had to be catching on. We stopped ourselves from paging for Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was missing after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Everyone was looking for the dictator. We joked it could be possible the dictator was in the Dallas airport flying somewhere to evade being captured. Gratefully we recovered quickly from our laughing endorphin high. We wisely decided it was better to let the military find Saddam and for us not to lose our jobs.

Growing up we used to say the name Archibald McNulty for a curse word. My mom had heard the name when she was younger. She thought the name sounded like a curse word if you said it with the right tone. We weren’t allowed to curse when we were younger. But, we could say Archibald McNulty. So, we did. One day I was flying and I told this story to another Skytress. She loved the name Archibald McNulty and the story behind it. So, for three days she would pick up the airplane PA and page for Archibald McNulty. I giggled each time she made the PA. Then one day I was flying with my Skyter friend, Brian. Our first officer’s last name was McNulty. I told Brian the story about Archibald McNulty being a curse word in my family. Brian laughed. A few minutes later Brian was getting something out of one of our carts. When he stood up he forgot the retractable counter was extended. He hit the counter top with the top of his head. It made an awful sound. Without hesitation Brian said “Sean McNulty!” Sean McNulty was the first officer’s name. Brian said “Sean McNulty” was a much worse curse name than Archibald McNulty. Brian and I really laughed when he said this. We joked about “Sean McNulty” for the rest of the flight. I told Brian I was going to tell the first officer we were using his name as a curse word when we landed. Unfortunately, the pilots had a short turn time. The first officer went to the next airplane before I could tell him about the curse word. When our new pilots arrived Brian and I were goofing off and saying, “Sean McNulty” repeatedly. The Captain heard us saying “Sean McNulty”. He turned to us and said….”Sean McNulty? I know Sean McNulty. He’s a great guy”. Brian and I laughed even more. I told the Captain we were using his name as a curse word. I explained the Archibald McNulty story. I told the Captain Sean was a very nice guy. I felt a wee bit guilty using his name as a curse word. Several months later I flew with THE Sean McNulty. I told him the whole story about his name. He had a great sense of humor. He laughed. Whenever Brian sees the last name “McNulty” he will take a picture and text it to me. Fortunately for us there are a few “McNulty’s, at our airline. Sadly, we have yet to find an Archibald McNulty. And to that I say, “Archibald McNulty!!!”