BE NICE TO THAT ‘ TROLLEY DOLLY’ THE NEXT TIME YOU FLY

Social media is unique in the history of communication in that it potentially allows equal exposure to everyone. It’s all very egalitarian, but in the maelstrom of content, the eloquent and relevant must compete with the asinine and inconsequential. You will, probably sooner rather than later, find yourself clicking your tongue or rolling your eyes so hard that you can see your cevicomedullary junction, where the top of your spine meets your brainstem. Example: two loudmouthed “radio personalities” recently mocked a politician for describing reading, writing and arithmetic as the three Rs. Arithmetic doesn’t start with an “R”, they brayed.

True, but the phrase has been in common use since around 1795. The Court of

Twitter ruled them worthy of derision.

Another recent example – for me, anyway – was the Twittizen who described flight attendants as “Gaatjies of the skies.”

Gaatjies (literally young guards) are essentially ticket-conductors on Cape Town’s minibus-taxis, and a quintessential, if raucous part of the city’s soundtrack. Seven seconds on Main Road between Cape Town, Mowbray, Claremont and Wynberg you’ll have heard them hailing commuters.

But while gaatjies have their own skillset, lumping them and flight attendants together is simply inaccurate.

Yes, they’ve been taught to pass you your drink without spilling it.

They’ve even been trained to deal politely with the passenger who ignores those requests on the PA system and keeps his headphones and cellphone on and his tray-table down until instructed otherwise, in person and by someone in uniform. WILLIAM SMOOK

Doing so, grudgingly and with an air of huffy martyrdom seems to somehow signify rugged individualism and Sticking It To The Man, like surreptitiously untucking your shirt at school.

But around 90% of flight attendants’ training deals with saving lives rather than asking “chicken or beef?” or dealing with Dwayne From Accounts In Seat 13C (NB: Gluten Allergy).

They can deliver babies and perform CPR. In an emergency, the cabin crew will see you to safety ahead of themselves. They’re trained to stay calm even while passengers fall prey to panic.

Therefore, dismissive terms like “trolley-dolly” are not only insulting but inaccurate.

When you board an aircraft you place your life as much in the hands of the cabin crew as in the hands of those “Well folks, from the flight-deck …” professionals at the plane’s pointy end.

The rigour of civil-aviation regulations means that emergencies are rare. A regular traveller can take hundreds of flights and experience nothing more exciting than a bit of turbulence and Dwayne From Accounts sighing about having to raise his window blind for the landing.

Perhaps we think that someone is a petty jobsworth because they insist on such procedures. But the aircrew’s training for emergencies is repeated until it’s part of their muscle-memory that runs in the background. Any airline passenger should be glad about that, rather than begrudging such attention to detail.

Now just turn off your phone, and put up that tray table. LS

Do you have a funny or quirky story about your travels? Send 600 words to travelmag@sundaytimes.co.za and include a recent photograph of yourself for publication with the column.