Tales From My First Year As A Hostie

Alcohol, Alcohol and Yes Please, I’ll Have More Alcohol

You don’t want to think it but when someone gets on the plane and immediately asks for a Gin and Tonic before they've even found their seat, you can’t help but think umm, I can see where this is going. This is going through an entire bottle of gin (or two) over the next 13 hours.

Fortunately, by the time my colleague had told me about it, the guy had already found his seat and was snoring his head off. All before take off.

As it turned out, Gin and Tonic guy slept for the entire flight and the first I heard from him was just before breakfast when he asked me for a Gin and Tonic. I told him I’d get it shortly which in hostie language, means I’ll get it for you as soon as I’ve done everything else which in this case, includes serving breakfast to 371 people so don’t expect it any time soon.

On another recent flight, I had a passenger who drank for the entire flight. Now this might sound normal but it’s actually quite an achievement to manage to drink for 13 hours straight. This is because when you sit in seat for hours on end, you can’t help but fall asleep before too long.

Lots of people start off with a hiss and a roar. They drink until they can’t drink any more. Either that or they drink until they fall asleep. One or the other. Sooner or later, they quieten down. Unless you are an alcoholic. I don’t mean this in a casual way. I’m talking about the type of alcoholic that actually needs to have alcohol to sleep.

When we are trying to slow people down, we employ a number of techniques. Sometimes, we will take out a couple of packs of pretzels with their drink. This subtly suggests that we are keeping an eye on them and that if they want to continue to drink, then they also need to show us that they are eating something.

Alternatively, we will start to respond slower to their requests. And sometimes, we even sometimes start to water down their drinks. I hate having to resort to these measures but basically, I’ll do anything before I have to tell someone that I’m cutting them off, because let me tell you, that pill is never received well.

Or so I’ve heard. To be honest, I’ve never had to cut anyone off so that’s something I still have to look forward to.

Anyway, my particular passenger was drinking Whiskey and coke. At least, that’s how she started off. After four or so hours, she sneakily admitted that she just couldn’t sleep and that she need alcohol to help her sleep.

Foolishly, I questioned her reasoning. I told her alcohol was full of sugar and that sugar doesn't help people sleep. In fact, it just keeps people awake. After all, have you seen what happens when you give kids lollies? The last thing they do is feel like sleeping.

But alcoholic adults are different.

Her problem was that she needed a full on bottle of alcohol to put her to sleep and we were feeding her small doses so it just wasn’t doing the job.

But at the end of the day, I’m not prepared to let anyone drink themselves into oblivion. At the end of the day, I imagine these people are going to drive themselves to where they are going. And at the end of the day, I don’t want to be responsible for them killing themselves or anyone else, in a car accident.

I know this is very dramatic and these people are probably getting picked up or catching a taxi, but it’s my nature. I always imagine worst case scenario. Or so my partner says. But I do it for a reason. I do it so that my humble actions can never contribute to somebody else’s bad luck. I’d hate that. I’d hate myself for that.