April 18: Case Western Reserve University swag

Thursday, April 19, 2012 - Posted by 366 White Elephants at 1:00 AM
Given to Jesse from Nandini.
Clockwise from bottom left: reusable lunch bag, cup,
pink drawstring bag, frisbee, 3 pencils, girls engineering t-shirt,
and bag clip
Part I:

I'm flying home from San Francisco and I've got too many bags around my seat and I'm cramped.  The flight attendant walks by me and I tell her I have a question.  She gives me some snarky response and I tell her I will give her a fine local Bay chocolate if she can guess what I want within two guesses.  I told her she can ask me for a couple of hints, but that's all.  She says she doesn't like chocolate.  I say "Take my hummus and pretzel dip".  She doesn't like that either.  Meanwhile, Jesse--who I don't know at this point--is sitting across the aisle from me laughing at the interchange.

I offer her a hand-crafted limerick instead.  She accepts the challenge, but ultimately does not guess my question.  She does take my backpack and put it up in the front of the plane with the rest of the crew's belongings.  The flight continues and we all go about our business.

Toward the end of the flight, I think about how nice the flight attendant was and decide to write her a limerick.  I ask Jesse for a pen.  I write the limerick and give it to the flight attendant, which they both find amusing.  I thought Jesse was nice enough to let me borrow his pen, so I figure I should do something nice for him in return.  I rip off the one side of a Moleskine instruction book that had some blank space to write on.  The opposite side had some German writing.  Since I know German, I thought I would give him three random German phrases and their definitions.  I hand them to him and he says "I know German.  These are great".  I remember one being "Could you refresh my pillowcase?"

We talk some more and Jesse wants to be a part of my blog.  He reaches into his bag and--presto!--pulls out a gift, which I'll give to the next recipient.

Doesn't wear shoes because he likes
showing off his pedicure
Jesse
-Profession: Sales

-Favorite kind of shoe:  I prefer not to wear shoes if I can get away with it.

-If you could plan an afternoon picnic with either Ice Cube or Ice T, who would you pick?:  I'm a West Coast guy, so it would have to be Ice Cube.  He's in my generation, too.

-Since you travel so much for your job, what differences (i.e. perks) have you noticed between the airlines?:  They are pretty much all the same now.  In the old days, you used to have to ask to get upgraded with the exception of Northwest (they automatically upgraded you).  Now they all do that.  Once in a while, if you are nice to the flight attendants, they will comp you.  But that's more of a personal thing than with the company.

-What % of the flight safety instructions do you have committed to memory?:  100%.  I have heard that speech so many times, I could give it to myself.