The Pad: Moving In

Posted in A Day in the Life of a Flight Attendant | 3 comments

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The Crash Pad was run by a UPS First Officer. She, a closeted lesbian (in my opinion), was a few crayons short of a full box. She had told me that she had set up the crash pad in this particular apartment complex because she was using the address to send her child to a better school. Fair enough. I know what that’s like, my parents did the same to zone me correctly for a better school growing up in New York City.

On September 28th I left Phoenix enroute to Los Angeles. When I arrived I unpacked my car and headed upstairs to Apartment 408. The apartment was a 2 bedroom with a den, living area, dining area, kitchen and two bathrooms. The door-less den had been converted to a bedroom as well. The master bedroom had a bathroom inside of it and 2 sets of bunkbeds housing 6 occupants. The other bedroom had 2 bunkbeds housing 4 occupants and the den had 1 bunkbed with 2 occupants. The second bathroom was located across from the smaller bedroom and in between both the master bedroom and the den.

I knocked on the door to enter the crash pad for the first time… and waited. No one came to the door. I knocked again, remembering that I told Carol I’d be arriving today at 3pm and realizing I was right on schedule. Finally, John opened the door and with a snaky attitude quickly said “can I help you?”

I told him that I was a new resident in the crash pad and was there to meet with Carol. He said “well, she didn’t tell us someone new was coming.. But come in.”

Carol, the owner of the crash pad, finally showed up after about 30 minutes of awkward silence while I sat on the couch waiting. She had told me that because I would be in the crash pad nightly while going through training, that she was going to charge me $375 for the month and when training was over rent would be $275 since I would be there only when I had to be. Though $275 was steeper than the crash pads I heard about in the past, knowing I always had my own bed and I was with Aimee made the price a bit more attractive.

After I paid my $375 Carol handed me the keys and showed me to my new bed almost like a prison guard would escort a new inmate to their cell. Unfortunately I was originally placed in the master bedroom with 5 other people. Luckily, the last of the 12 beds to be rented was by yet another friend of mine from US Airways, Robert, age 26. We both got placed in the same room and on the same bunk. We were, however, sleeping among United Flight Attendants. The other Flight Attendants from our airline were in the other rooms.

Defining this room as prison is quite accurate. On the bunk to our left was Annabel and Lisa. Annabel was 21 years old, new to the airline industry and new to being on her own. She had grown up in Orange County, California and was using this new job as a flight attendant to gain her independence from her parents. Lisa, on the other hand, was a mixture of self love and absolute craziness. Originally from Texas, Lisa, about 25 years old, supposedly was dating someone named Peter in Frankfurt, Germany though because of his distance we never had the pleasure of meeting him. On the bed across from theirs, on my bed’s right, was Steven a 30 year old from Hawaii who was also an avid gamer. He was single, shy and had quite a thing for Lisa. That was evident from the moment I saw both of them in the room together but I knew nothing would ever happen because she loved herself too much and he was socially awkward.

The smaller bedroom is where Aimee, aged 27, was along with William, Matthew and Candice, all flight attendants for my airline. William, in his late 40s, was an accomplished cultural diversity specialist with a few published books to his name, Matthew, 26, was also from US Airways but was never friendly with myself. In fact, we still aren’t friendly today (there’ll be more to this later) and Candice, early 40s, I met only twice. That was the room to be in. It was quiet, dark, comfortable and had a door.

The den is where John, mid 30s, slept. John, also working for my airline, was originally from a tropical island and, in my opinion a closeted gay man, was supposedly married to a woman working for Air France in Ireland. I didn’t quite understand that either. Sleeping in the room was John was Edward. Edward was in his late 20s, straight, and was also working for my airline. This was his first airline job and he enjoyed it just as much as he enjoyed to party and have a great time.

The crash pad as a whole, like I said earlier was a true human experiment. Living in one 2 bedroom apartment was twelve occupants ranging in age from 21 to 50 with different backgrounds, personalities, quirks and goals. The only thought that made this situation bearable was the question: What’s the chances we would all be there at the same time? I thought slim to none, but it happened more often than not creating for an interesting living space.

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