I followed the last passengers down to the door of the aircraft and started talking to the cabin crew while the final checks were being done (I hadn’t been a Dispatcher for some time, but that’s another story), but you never really lose the patter. I started talking to the Cabin Crew and apologised for looking like a tramp next to them as they looked so smart and elegant.
The CSD said thanks but that Flt Deck had asked how many other sectors they’d already done (the usually pilot chivalry, too busy moaning about their cheeseboard) and she crestfallen said it was her first. I said she looked that fresh it must be her first flight ever. The blush was so intense it was like a sunburst;
‘You are such a nice young man’.
‘Young man? Get away with you. Didn’t your mummy not tell you to talk to strange men’.
The blush had steadied into a deep red colour that was generating enough heat to make me want to loosen my collar and the young cabin crew standing behind her was looking daggers at me.
‘Ooh, you are a one; would you like a cup of tea?’
I sniffed and did my best Sid James impression.
‘Tea? You’re all right love; looking into those big brown eyes is refreshing enough’.
By this stage I thought I would have to reach into my tabard and get my sunglasses out.
She started to simper and murmured about checking something down the back and walked off, chin up like a princess reborn to the sound of trumpets only she could hear, leaving me with the gimlet-eyed junior.
She looked me up and down and said: ‘You’re a very bad old man’.
I sniffed and started with: ‘Alright love....’
‘Don’t’.
I tried again: ‘Get your k....’
‘Stop it’
‘Cup of tea with...?,
‘No’.
‘Two sugars, chop, chop?’.
‘Fuck off’.
The door slammed to, in front of me and I turned to find the Dispatcher who was shadowing me shaking his head ruefully at me. ‘The patter never really goes away, does it?’
As soon as I heard that, I clapped my hands for joy, for I was among my own people again.
1-6-2019
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