Jus d'Orange...Sans Glace.

I started off this morning in snowy Montréal, where I was eager to get up and out of bed at 5:30am.  I am always eager to get to the airport in Montréal, because I can answer all kinds of questions and be at every passengers call.....en français....of course.  For some reason, helping passengers doesn't have the same appeal in the english language.  I am always eager to chat up passengers going to and from Montréal....in hopes that we will have something in common and I can practice my French.  Granted, they are certainly not parisien...and their accent comes out somewhat grotesque...but I can usually fight through it and carry on a decent conversation.  If you ask me, my french is better than their french...but who is keeping tabs?  

I can tell you that I did not serve any drink other than orange juice on that flight.  Sans ou avec glace? That was the only question I asked.  Jus d'orange s'il vous plaît...  That was the only answer.

I arrived back into Kennedy airport around 9 am and called to be "released."  If you are a flight crew and on "reserve" our crew scheduling department can extend you to another flight or overnight when you arrive back into base.  I was keeping my fingers crossed that I could have the day at home to do laundry, go to the bank, and go to the store.  "Hi Melissa...this is Flight Attendant Philpot.  I was just calling to hopefully be released,"  I said in my sweetest voice possible.  We laughed about the weather and getting things back on track while she looked around in the system for anything and everything she could assign me to.  After holding for about 90 long seconds she came back on and paused.  "Well, we are going to surface you to LaGuardia Airport for a Detroit turn."  I wanted to reach through the phone and pull her hair and cry in her face....but instead she heard a grumbled, "Okay, put it on my schedule."  

Surfacing to another airport only happens at our base here in New York.  We are the only base that operates co-domicile....so going between the two happens pretty often.  There is a company that scheduling calls that takes us back and forth between airports as needed.  It is free to us, as long as the company schedules us.  

I rush to the gate and find out that there is not a second flight attendant listed for the flight.  The clock ticks away....10, 10:12, 10:35, 10:48...with a 10:55 departure time, we will surely be delayed.  For the past 10 minutes I (and the pilots) have been hoping that maybe they would just cancel it.  The captain begins to list himself on the earlier flight home.  The First Officer would be able to have lunch with a friend, and I could go home and get my chores finished.  I look at the clock again which just turned 10:57am and they just assigned me a partner in crime.  A few choice words come into all of our heads.  

Let's go to Detroit.