The Chime.

I’m slowly discovering my pet peeves with this job. One of the most recent ones is ‘the chime’. You know, the one that comes on when the seat belt sign lights up and signals towards the impending landing of the aircraft.

No, it’s not the actual chime that I dislike. I actually really enjoy the chime. It tells me that I am basically about to finish my “shift”. No, what I hate is what the chime represents to the passengers. Apparently when the chime goes on, and the light illuminates, it does not mean return to your seats and remain seated (even though we explicitly explain this to everyone at the beginning of EVERY flight…maybe someone should do some research work on whether passenger’s memories become like that of goldfish as they forget almost immediately quite possibly EVERYTHING that we outline in detail and instruct them to do for the duration of the flight). The chime indicates for some reason or other that they should all get up and start a mile-long queue for the bathroom. Do you not feel the aircraft descending? Do you have superhuman ears that don’t feel the pressure? Is there ANY indication to you that we are about to arrive into your destination?

I have a theory. Remember Pavlov’s dogs?
He conditioned them to drool just at the sound of the bell ringing. Now who is the idiot who decided to condition these passengers? It’s definitely not the flight attendants. Or anyone that works up in the air really. This phenomenon is such an inconvenience to us.  We are already scrambling to clean up the unreal amount of garbage that was created by the pax during the flight (another phenomenon that I ponder at the termination of every flight).  In case you all haven’t noticed, the galley is not the largest area in the world.  Having to work around you guys standing around waiting for the bathroom while we are trying to secure everything for landing is not an easy task. Oh and thank you for filling the air with that intoxicating smell of airplane bathroom. It’s great. If not for the simple fact that it would prolong your stay in the bathroom, it makes me want to gag all over you.

I just want to put this out there: when the light illuminates and the chime goes off, it does NOT mean go to the bathroom. It means getting in your seats, fastening your seat belt, and holding that excrement for just FIVE minutes and you can go ahead and relieve yourselves in the terminal building.

And no, you CANNOT use the bathroom once we’re on the ground.  Seriously I’m going to hand out pamphlets that advertise adult diapers and phone numbers of local walk-in clinics, because if you really can’t hold your pee for 5 extra minutes (or if you had to go SO badly I’m pretty sure you had to go 15 minutes ago, but the neurons in your brain somehow misfired and thus you didn’t receive the alert message to go to the bathroom) you should either really consider investing in adult diapers or visiting a local clinic to get yourself checked out.