Enough with the Penguins!

Dear Shawn,

Tonight, I was watching Blue Planet 2 with my mother when they showed penguins. Mom made a cute little noise and looked over at me with the sweetest face. We watched and listened as we learned about chinstrap penguins. She noticed that in the shot of what looked like a billion black and white birds, that they were all facing the same direction, which was into the camera, certainly for the sake of the show. (Who wants to see the backs of a billion chinstraps?) She wondered why this was. Thinking maybe for the warmth of the sun, or some mind-numbing fact that perhaps penguins have a built-in compass and always face (insert direction here), I replied, “So they could look into the camera.” Her failure to laugh at my funny made me wonder if she didn’t, just perhaps, believe me.

Then she turned to me with a serious look and asked, “How did you get into collecting penguins?”

“Really?” I replied, as I waited for her to laugh, or something, to show that she was kidding. No, she was serious. This is the point I might say something about her age, and how people start to lose it when they get older, but I just turned fifty a month ago, and lately, it seems like I can’t remember anyone’s name. In the past two days, I’ve forgotten the names of Robin Williams (that comedian who died a few years ago), Nicole Kidman (that beauty from down under who I used to call my wife, but she just didn’t know it), Kevin Costner (that guy, who played the NASA boss in that movie we watched last night) and a few others I’ve already forgotten again as I write this letter. So I have no room to kid Mom for forgetting why I started to collect penguins, over thirty years ago.

She asked why the big sigh, and I reminded her that this is probably the question I get asked most often, usually followed by, “Do you mean real, live penguins?” to which I love to retort, “Yes, I keep real, live penguins in a huge refrigerated pool in my back yard, which is full of the fish they need to sustain life. You know you love me for my sass! Of course, Mom knows I don’t have live ones, so this time I was spared.

For Mom, I pulled out the shortened, abridged version: In high school, I loved Opus the Penguin and Fleetwood Mac. I had ten, then twenty, then fifty, and at around two-hundred, I decided to go for the record.

“Fleetwood Mac?” she asked.

“Yeah, their Rumors album had penguins on it and they had an album named Penguin.”

She gave me a “Hm” of approval and went back to Blue Planet 2, which was now telling us about the walrus of the Arctic. Then she asked, “What are you going to do with all of your penguins when you die?”

“I’ve told all of my friends that when they leave my funeral, everyone has to take about a dozen or so with them to remember me by.” She thought this was a good idea.

“Well,” she said, “you sure have enough.”

At over 4,000 penguins, I sure do. I may need a few more friends, though!

Secret Codes

Dear Shawn,

Going to the airport is so much fun. I have always enjoyed doing so, even before I became a flight attendant. I love people watching. I love plane spotting. I love the architecture of a well-designed airport terminal. The large windows make for great storm watching, or just enjoying takeoffs and landings on a clear day.

After I got my job at Mother Airline, my mother asked me about something she had observed when making a change to her ticket. I had noticed it, too and I’m sure many others have. Mom wanted to know why it takes the agent so long to make changes, “What is all that typing she is doing?” She had this whole comedy routine about dealing with the agent in the airport, complete with her mimicking the typing motion with her hands.

“Hi,” Mom would say as she reached the imaginary counter. “I’d like to see if I could change to a window seat.” The agent would take the ticket and begin typing.

The agent would ask a simple question, and there would be more typing. “Do you want towards the front of the plane, or back?” Type, type type. “Are you checking a bag?” Type, type, type. Wait. Type, type, type. Wait. Glance up and back down. Type, type, type.

Mom would ask, “Are they writing a letter? Are they writing to their kids in college? Letters to the editor? Working on a book?”

Mom’s comedy always made me laugh, but what I found out with this job is that the computer systems used by the airlines are so antiquated, that every entry requires a code and then the information. It’s not like a windows-style computer, where you just enter or click. In fact, there aren’t even mouse devices on their computers.

Talk about brain exercises, to look up my work schedule for the month, I have to remember a six-digit code: ‘dsplof’. This pulls up a line of code with spaces. In the spaces I input my file number, the month and base. At the end of the line of code, I enter, and then my schedule for the month comes up. Want to write a flying partner? That starts with ‘bldnot’. To pull up an upcoming flight- ‘dspid/’. Want to know who I’m working with- fltlof. Lots of codes. Nothing but codes. Every flight attendant has stashed away somewhere, and more likely in more than one location, a list of codes needed in order to survive the behind the scenes aspect of flying the skies.

Good times. I’m thinking maybe I should actually go write Mom. See you soon.