One thing I can say about my job is to expect the unexpected. Every day brings something new that I haven’t experienced, heard or seen. This last four day trip brought out many new experiences.

Day three, the fun started. We arrived on the aircraft ontime and began our checks when the gate agent came onto the plane and asked me if it was okay if we boarded early. This particular agent has been with the company just as long as I have, so I laughed and reminded him that I board early, in a joking way of course. He then told me that we had a group of 40+ senior citizens traveling with us to Washington D.C. and he wanted some extra time for them to board and settled. Of course, I agreed.

We began boarding 40 minutes prior to departure and the first passenger to board went straight to the bathroom in First Class. The remaining members of the group took their time boarding, but hey — thats what we expected. During the boarding process this woman comes to the front  and starts passing clothing into the restroom and then returning to the main cabin. This happened twice. Finally, she comes up to me with a plastic bag and says “this needs to be taken off the aircraft.” Before touching it and looking as confused as puppy looking for his bone, I asked “what’s in it?” and her response: “soiled clothing.”

It seemed as if the woman in the restroom had an accident. Her daughter kept trying to clean her clothes and pass them back to her in the lav. The problem: her extra clothing was in the cargo hold.

One of the FAs in the back calls me and says “a lady just tried to pass me this bag which is leaking something, and told me it has to get off the aircraft. It got on my uniform, and I sent her forward with it.” I then told her what the substance in the bag was and she quickly went into the lav and changed her uniform. The woman gets to the front of the aircraft with her second bag of soiled clothing, which was taken off the aircraft.

Finally, her mother exits the bathroom and the First Officer opens the door to go in prior to take off and we found the lav covered in.. for lack of a better word.. crap. It was all over the walls, mirror, floor, etc. I instantly called for the cleaners to return to clean the lav and just as I did that the daughter came up to me with tears in her eyes. She was embarrassed. She attempted twice to enter the lav to clean it herself and I assured her it was no big deal, these things happen, theres no need to clean — we have people coming who are paid to do this (and make a lot more money than me I hope) and all would be taken care of. She gave me a hug and said “this is the worst way to start out a trip.” I asked her if she needed anything, she jokingly said “a bloody mary” I opened the cart and made her one. At the same time, one of the other FAs brought her mother a blanket to wrap around her waist to hide the stains, since her clothes were unattainable.

About 2 hours into the flight, the mother, came to the front galley and wanted to apologize for what happened on the ground. Again, I explained that it wasn’t a big deal. Accidents happen, and life goes on. We all will be there one day. Then she totally broke my heart by saying: “You know, I’m turning 90 in March. I’m trying to stay as active as I can to keep my body in shape and prevent situations like this morning. I figure, I have 4 more years to live and I’m not done living. I’m not ready to give up.”

I responded by saying that she looked great for 89, because she did. One of the other FAs there with me put it perfectly by saying “you must feel like a young soul in an aging vessel” and she agreed 100%. All was said and done, she thanked us again and said she thought our airline only hired the best looking people.. and of course.. I agreed.

Aside from this, bathroom situation, at NO POINT during the flight was there ever less than 6 people in line to use the restrooms in the main cabin. It made service almost impossible, actually, we did a lot of service from my galley in the front and even let main cabin passengers use the lav in the front. I was watching the “water/waste” indicator on the crew panel more closely then I pay attention to Kathy Griffin’s Tour schedule. The indicator was getting lower and lower and my nerves were getting higher and higher. Where were all these senior citizens going to pee?

Luckily, with 10 minutes to spare.. we landed in D.C. with 1.4% of the waste tank available.