La cucaracha
Jacksonville, FL
I AM TAXIING out of Jacksonville, Florida this morning. All crew members and passengers are seated, seat belts fastened, the morning sun streaming through the windows, the start of just another day on just another airplane. Today I am the flight attendant in charge and I am sitting on my jumpseat at the most forward door, the door we call “One Left.”
Suddenly there’s a commotion in the cabin. Call lights are going off and passengers are frantically waving their arms. I jump up and hurry over to – who knows what? A medical emergency, the bane of flight attendants everywhere? Yes, we’re trained in first aid, CPR, how to staunch bleeding or deliver a baby, but still, dread washes over me. Something is clearly happening, and I doubt it’s anything good.
Oxygen is our treatment of choice for everything. You’re having a heart attack? Oxygen! You’re in labor? Oxygen! You’re hung over? Oxygen! We have lots of oxygen onboard, stored in slender, 2-foot long olive-drab metal bottles fitted with gauges and labels, tubing and a face mask for the victim, a shoulder strap for the rescuer. We check every bottle before every departure. Gauge in the green zone indicating bottle is full, mask and tubing in good condition, tube plugged securely into the “hi” outlet.
All that training, reinforced yearly in recurrent training classes federally mandated and strictly overseen by the FAA, has left me with the conclusion that I actually know very little. First aid training is but a mere synopsis of the knowledge professionals possess. I’m an imposter.
My heart is pounding as I rush to the row where the ruckus is. Passengers are pointing to the fuselage air vent right by their heads. I look up and see a huge palmetto bug sitting on the vent. Two inches long, monstrous, the sanitized name “palmetto” disguising what it really is. There is a gargantuan cockroach directly above the heads of my passengers and everyone is freaking out, screaming, jumping out of their seats, standing in the aisle.
These insects are fairly common in the heat and humidity of Florida. I have seen them before, have occasionally had one inside my house. They are so disgusting, so big, so hard to dispatch with a shoe or a broom, that hard brown body impossible to smash. And they fly!
I rush back to the interphone at my jumpseat and call the pilots who contact air traffic control, pull off the taxiway, bring the aircraft to a halt. Much discussion ensues about what to do with the huge insect. Finally, a brave passenger says he’ll grab it if I give him some paper towels. He stealthily approaches the air vent, carefully nabs the stowaway and- it’s a FAKE PLASTIC COCKROACH with a magnet on the underside!!
The captain insists on seeing it. The passenger who “captured” it gave it up, but only if he could get it back. The fake is amazingly lifelike, its antennae, legs and body molded to look exactly like the real thing. The flight attendants all photograph it, displayed on the galley counter. It’s kind of funny… afterward.
I hope I never meet the perverse person who planted that fake cockroach on my airplane.