American Airlines

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our award-winning American Airlines trash collecting service."

The saccharine voice of the male stewardess rang out shrill and ingratiating over the heads of bewildered passengers who froze in their seats in disbelief even as the words were spoken. Award-winning and American Airlines in the same sentence? Surely there was an obscure rule of English grammar somewhere that prevented just such a solecism?

Then a stewardess appeared in the aisle, his appearance and mien confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was he who had uttered those absurd words just moments earlier. Gray trashbag in hand, he proceeded down the length of the plane to carry out his glorified garbage collecting duties, fat bottom knocking against seats on both sides of the aisle in a terrible glissando.

Not that garbage collecting duties can ever be too glorified. Indeed, it is a most respectable job. The body and the mind, not only of the one performing it, but also of the passengers, are simultaneously cleansed and purified. A luxurious exhalation usually follows the completion of trash collection on a good day.

This, however, was not a good day, or even an ordinary day, for the male stewardess performing the task had the conceit to believe that trash collection did not inherently possess sufficient dignity to justify his performing it. His arrogance in declaring to the two hundred or so passengers packed tightly into the metal tube hurtling through the sky thousands of feet above the clouds that the collection of trash had to be pronounced a service at which American Airlines boasted great expertise, as evidenced by the numerous awards they had won for that alone, before it could be a job worthy of his efforts, was astounding coming from a being who obviously had so many greater problems than being asked to parade in front of bored and irritable members of the American middle class with a trash bag.

What was more appalling still was that American Airlines seemed to be trying to make up for their faults and deficiencies in other areas by attempting to turn garbage collection, that most noble and sacred of duties, which most flight attendants would give anything to be assigned, into a competition at which American Airlines must appear better than other airlines that were more reserved about their accomplishments. All this without a shred of evidence, too.

But fate has a strange way of delivering justice when it is most needed. The male stewardess's due was delivered him when the aircraft was two thousand feet from landing, when one of the passengers at the back of the aircraft suddenly stood up to use the lavatory.

"Sir, we're about to land," said M. Derrière, raising his hand like a policeman.

"Go," said the wife to her silent doglike husband, shoving him along toward the lavatory with an imperious motion of her great arms. Then turning to the male stewardess, his face now flushed with indignation, she said with a piercing coldness, "He can't wait."

"Okay," mumbled meek M. Derrière with his usual peevishness. "I'll just tell the captain that we can't land right now."

A few minutes later the captain's voice, controlled and dignified, and appearing to originate from a higher plane of existence than the flight attendants', filled the cabin with its golden tones. He denounced the errant male stewardess for his conceit, his poor conduct, and his arrogance, and continued hurling animadversions at his rapidly deflating being till he was reduced to a pile of tears shaking spasmodically at the far end of the cabin.

The cheers of the passengers as the plane deafeningly made contact with the runway, shaking with growing violence like all creation on the Day of Judgement, reminded all who were present that day that the world order that had existed since the beginning of time was immune to the occasional impertinent grandiloquence of lesser beings with ambition.