Daily Prompt; Far

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? How close or far are you from that vision?

 

It makes me laugh even now; airline stewardess. I don’t know how I got the idea because I didn’t fly in a plane until I was older so it must have been from airline commercials on TV that showed the attractive, white-gloved airline stewardesses. Men loved them for some reason and they got paid to travel around the world!

When the book “Coffee, Tea or Me” came out  (my mom hid it in her sewing stuff)  it exposed the sexual lives of airline stewardesses: that made me want to be one even more!

But not for long; the next year I discovered drugs. I wore striped bell bottoms that were so long they frayed at the bottom. I had to wear a skirt to school because girls were not allowed to wear pants and I’m pretty sure that pant suits were not yet in style for stewardesses, either. Even if they were, pant suits were too ‘straight’ for me. Airline stewardesses were too ‘straight’ for me. Just about everything was too ‘straight’ for me. (In those days that referred to drugs, not homosexuality)

A few years later I witnessed the reality of being a stewardess. It was on a Grey Cup flight from Toronto to Winnipeg. (For all you non-Canadians, The Grey Cup is our Superbowl).  The plane was full of drunks harassing the stewardesses; this would no longer be tolerated but in those days it was just ‘guys being guys’. It was unbelievable. I clearly remember the harried look on one stewardess’ face with wisps of hair coming out her skewed cap.

I knew that day, for sure, I would never apply for a job as an airline stewardess.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/futures-past/