I have seldom gotten the opportunity to fly into my hometown (Dublin) since I have started this job, but this week I finally got to come home, for one night. I know it sounds like a short amount of time but there is plenty you can do in Dublin in twenty-four hours.

 

The first thing I did was sneak out a different exit than the main arrival area as my mother was standing there with a giant fucking sign to welcome me home. She saw me five weeks ago; this was just because I happened to be wearing my uniform or whatever. Mothers!

 

The obvious thing to do when you fly into your hometown with a crew is to take them out for the night and show them the sights. In this case the Captain was such a moron I literally had to run a clandestine operation to keep him out of the entertainment plans. In a series of events that I couldn’t plan he probably spent most of the night crying in the shower after he managed to ram the airplane into the runway in what could only loosely be termed a landing.

 

Storm Aileen may have ruined his night but it definitely wasn’t going to damage my plans. I should make a very important observation here. Ten years ago ‘storm Aileen’ would simply have been considered a shitty night of wind and rain but for some reason we have taken to naming our weather. The storms we experience in Ireland should not be named especially given the destruction real storms can deliver in Asia and North America. It’s akin to calling a house cat a dangerous predator; it ain’t killing any grown ass humans anytime soon.

 

The next morning, hangover in hand, I make my way to the hotel lobby to report with the crew. I’m not going to lie, they look like they actually experienced a tropical storm. Rough doesn’t even come close to describing this group but nothing compares to our Captain as he arrives looking utterly dishevelled. You have to keep in mind that he wasn’t even present for the festivities the previous night, which would at least give him an excuse. I just roll my eyes and get on with it. I’m too busy teasing the cabin crew for not being able to handle a few Guinness to pay him any attention.

 

When we get to security we all go through the normal shit of taking off belts and removing laptops etc. The cabin crew are always fairly squared away with this operation and have everything ready to go so we don’t have any delays. Airport Security is the biggest consumer of humanity’s time; a process that could so easily be completed if everyone read the clear instructions is quite literally delaying people for hours that they can never get back. Just when I think we’ve made it through without any hassle, I hear the Captain, aggressively, address a member of security.

 

Having been through a mountain of shit in work for what happened with UK border control only recently this was the last thing that I needed.

 

When I turn around he’s remonstrating with them about a large bottle of water that he had in his bag. Within seconds he’s waving his fat hands around and complaining that they should have told him he couldn’t take the water through security. At the same time I notice his trousers have slipped slightly as his belt is absent; they are falling off his waist faster than Mo Farah running away from WADA and I can do nothing to stop them.

 

As security point out his exposed y-fronts I crack up laughing and try to call the girls. Unfortunately the Guinness seems to have had more of an impact than storm Aileen and one of them is sprinting to the bathroom.

 

You can accuse Dublin of many things, including stupidly naming rainy days in order to cause mass panic, but it’s never boring.

 

Photo by Oliver Wendel on Unsplash