Flying Trash & Flip-Flops: Tales from the Cabin Cleaners
Eddie Murphy:
Yo, yo, yo! Lemme ask y’all somethin’—have y’all ever thought about the poor souls who gotta clean planes? I mean, the cabin service attendants? Man, that job is straight outta a horror movie! You ain’t seen a mess until you’ve seen what folks leave behind on a 12-hour flight from New York to Tokyo.
You ever step off a plane, look back and be like, “Nah, they gon’ need hazmat suits for this one”? I can’t even eat chips without dropping crumbs all over my couch at home, and here we are, thousands of feet in the air, like a flying frat party!
The Food Trays?
First of all, y’all know airline food is straight-up prison food with aspirations, right? Some dude ordered the chicken and rice, took one look, and was like, “Nah, this chicken looks like it went through TSA too.” He left the tray like it was a damn science project. He ain’t eat it—he just dissected it like, “What is this meat?” Cabin service attendants look at that tray like, “Man, this ain’t part of my job description. Y’all said I was cleanin’ up after humans, not performin’ autopsies!”
Bathrooms on Planes?
Oh, and the bathrooms. Bruh, listen… What is y’all doin’ in there? People act like it’s their last day on Earth when they hit that airplane bathroom. It’s like, “I’mma go in here and just… let everything go.” Like they got 3 minutes to live! You ever open the door and it’s like someone unleashed the Kraken in there? Yo, that’s where diseases are born! Cabin service gotta go in there like, “Alright, time to clean this mess, call in a priest, light some candles, and maybe an exorcist.”
Seatback Pockets?
And don’t even get me started on the seatback pockets. That’s where humans turn into squirrels. People just stuff ANYTHING in there! Old gum, empty chip bags, somebody’s mixtape—yeah, somebody put a mixtape in the pocket. Bro, no one’s listening to your beats at 35,000 feet! Like, you’re sitting there like, “How did I miss the announcement to clean out my garage?”
And then people put crazy stuff in there. Like you’ll find shoes. Whole ass shoes! One time, I found a flip-flop, ONE flip-flop. Who is this barefoot bandit just struttin’ off the plane like, “Eh, don’t need that anymore. Time to go barefoot in the airport!”
Cabin Attendant Relationships
Now, cabin service attendants—they be tight with each other! You have to be! It’s like, “We gotta clean up after these animals.” It’s like being in the trenches, man. One flight in, they lookin’ at each other like, “Hey, if I don’t make it through this aisle, you tell my family… I tried.”
But seriously, you know cabin attendants got those inside jokes like, “Yo, remember 4B on Flight 785? Dude ate three bags of pretzels, chugged a ginger ale, and just left it ALL for us in that airsick bag. That ain’t even sick, that’s just evil!”
The Aftermath
And they gotta do this fast. You get like 20 minutes to turn a whole plane into a sparkling clean masterpiece. That’s like giving you 20 minutes to clean your room as a kid when your mom is standing there with the belt, like, “Better get it done.” You know you just stuffin’ everything under the bed, pretending like it’s spotless.
Cabin service attendants are superheroes, man. They don’t wear capes—they got vacuums and disinfectant wipes! The real heroes! Forget the pilots—those folks in the orange vests that are out here with gloves, a spray bottle, and PTSD from cleaning airplane lavatories? Give them a round of applause! I say, next time you step off a plane, give them a salute. And if you ever leave a flip-flop behind, man, just know—they gonna be cursing your name.
Thank you, goodnight!