C U Next Thursday

Here I am sitting by the window in the peasant class, looking out to the landings & taking-offs at Doha Airport. We have been delayed for nearly one hour now. I am beginning to worry I might miss my connecting flight. The wife of an elderly Chinese couple sitting next to me asks for a glass of water from a cruising crew,  a very tall girl, Eastern European looking, elegant-ish in her burgundy Qatar Airways uniform

“We are not serving any drinks right now until we take off,” was her response.

A bit harsh and matronly tone response for a waitress I think. And this is not 3-star or 4-star airlines. It’s Qatar Airways. A premium airlines with a few “best airlines of the year” awards since its establisment in 1993.

On second look, the trolley dolly is not quite a girl. She looks a bit too old to be called a girl. She could have been shashaying the catwalks of Milan and Paris, only if she had lost a few kilos. Or may be more than a few kilos. Whatever. My poor next-seat neighbour seems petrified. I am too, a bit. She looks like she can break my neck with one single karate chop.

I am heading for Rome to catch my connecting flight for Bari. The nice Chinese couple next to me are going to Rome for a one week holiday. It’s their first time in Rome, they say. Then they will go to Greece for ten days before going back to Beijing, China, where they are residing now. She says she is from Beijing and he is from Nanjing. They met at Peking University where she did Pharmaceutical Science and he studied Physics. They have a daughter who is reading law in Peking University. The wife owns and run a small drugstore in Beijing and he teaches Mathematics and Physics in high school. I don’t ask the name of the school. I am sure I will forget its name the next second anyway.

For the whole 6 hours’ journey I never see the Russian (or may be Ukrainian) karate chop trolley dolley crack a smile while serving us. I think everybody else seating on both sides of the aisle “patrolled” by her is a bit terrified of her. She is at least 5′ 11″, a bit on a heavier side. Her platinum blond hair is tightly pulled upward to form a bun the size of a tennis ball on top her head. The tight bun pulls her eye brows upward at both ends and she reminds me of Gong Li’s character in Memoir of a Geisha. The arched brows make her look more intimidating.

I try not to ask anything from her but may be, if ask nicely, she will almost smile. Nope, not a smile when I, wearing a very big fake grin, nicely ask her for a glass of water. B i a t c h!!! I am not asking for a bubble. My guess is she thinks she is too good to serve us, hoi polloi and should be in the first class, serving peanuts the right way, on all fours to those first classers.

Finally after a very long six hours, we land. Phew….I wish the Chinese couple a pleasant holiday and they return the same for me when we walk the aisle to get off the plane. I am not holding grudges but….., with my sweetest fake smile I still say thank you to the heavyset Russian Gong Li while exiting the aircraft.

“C U Next Thursday,” is my parting nicety for her as I make a runner to catch my Alitalia flight for Bari.