This is a true story. Maybe you can explain it. I’ve never been able to.
Years ago as a junior flight attendant I often flew what were called “milk runs.” These were a series of short flights to small towns, sometimes as many as six in a day.
The flight crew and flight attendants always ended up tired and hungry when we arrived at our assigned layover in a small hotel in one of the small towns. Our layovers were minimal on these milk runs, and mostly we went to bed and tried to sleep before our dawn departure the next day. Then we would repeat another day of short hops and arrive back at our home base that night.
Years ago, on a very crisp fall evening in late October, our crew of three pilots and three flight attendants arrived in Youngstown, Ohio. Our layovers there were nice because we stayed at a quaint family-run motel which clearly dated back to the 1950’s. The proprietors were especially hospitable to the flight crews, often surprising us with food when we arrived. Anyone unlucky enough to be working on a holiday was always invited to share their family celebration.
This particular evening we arrived about eight p.m. Our hosts had thoughtfully provided a small buffet of deli meats, cheeses and homemade breads in the lobby while their son carried our suitcases upstairs. Soon we also climbed the wide circular staircase to our rooms. Another nice thing about staying at this hotel was that we each got a “suite”. Old and rustic though the hotel was, we had plenty of room to relax in our individual suites with a small kitchenette, living room and bedroom. As I showered, prepared my things for the next day’s 5 a.m. wake up call, and eventually dozed off to sleep, I had no inkling what was happening in another crew room that night.
In the lobby early the next morning I enjoyed a cup of coffee and donut with the three pilots and one other flight attendant. Laura, our senior attendant, had not come downstairs yet. At 6:00 the Captain, asked me to call and remind her it was time to leave. Laura sounded upset when she answered her phone and told me to “Come up here right away”. The Captain, a no-nonsense former military man, was not liking it one bit that we were going to be late getting to the airport, and accompanied me to Laura’s suite. The others followed.
Inside her suite, Laura tearfully told us that she had taken a shower last night, watched TV for a short while and then gone to sleep. But when she got dressed this morning she couldn’t find her shoes. Skeptically, the captain asked if she had left the room for a soft drink, had accidentally packed them in her suitcase, had visited another crew room and left them there? None of those, she insisted. She had locked the door behind her and it was still locked when she opened it for us just now. Same with the two windows. She, like most crew members, always checked that the windows and doors were locked as soon as she entered a hotel room. It was second nature to all of us.
Time, as well as the Captain’s understanding nature, was getting short, so he told us all to start looking – under the bed, in the hall, everywhere she could have absentmindedly left her shoes. We spread out, and as we did I noticed how genuinely distressed Laura was – I had no doubt then and never have to this day that she didn’t know where her shoes were.
Suddenly, in a strangely quiet voice the co-pilot called to us from the kitchenette. He was holding the refrigerator door open. With a strange look on his face he slowly pointed inside. On the shelf were Laura’s shoes. Propped against them was a handwritten note written in large, bold letters: “Thank you for letting me watch you sleep last night.”
Em
