But first I should tell you all a little bit about my uncle. He started out in the airline business driving a fuel truck and refueling airplanes; then he got a job with Northeast Airlines on Nantucket, running the entire airline station himself. After that, when Northeast got bought out, he worked a whole series of ramp and gate jobs at BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport). Two years before he was due to retire, the airline laid off a whole bunch of people; he used his seniority to get a slot at Hartsfield in Atlanta, one of the busiest airports in the world.
On this particular day, John's partner decided that the fuel wasn't flowing fast enough to suit him. The usual procedure for fixing this was to apply a little power to the engine.
John's partner stepped up to the cab, reached into the door, and mashed the gas pedal good and hard.
The fuel flow blasted John up in the air like a rocket. He came falling down off the wing, covered in aviation gas.
He was a bit irate.
He thought they'd managed it; until two minutes before departure, when one of the flight attendants came up the jetway to tell him, "We've got a problem."
On the aircraft, John found one of the mothers had slipped through, and was instructing her teenage daughter on something or other. John said to her, "Ma'am, it's time for the aircraft to leave."
"You wait, I'm talking to my daughter." she responded.
"Ma'am! The flight crew needs to close the door, and they can't do that if you are still aboard the aircraft."
"Didn't you hear me? I Am Talking To My Daughter." said the lady.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I am going to turn around and walk off this aircraft, and you are going to follow me. We charge our vendors three hundred dollars a minute if they delay the departure of one of our aircraft. If you don't follow me off the aircraft right now, the airport police are going to come and arrest you."
She followed him off the aircraft.
Then, on reaching the terminal, she decided to tell him off. "I want to register a complaint! You were extremely rude to me!"
"Yes, Ma'am, that's fine. May I have your name please?"
She walked off.
John told his boss what had happened. Then the lady came up to them.
"Are you his boss?"
"Yes, Ma'am, I am."
"I want to register a complaint! He was rude and obnoxious to me on the airplane!"
"Certainly, Ma'am; may I have your name?"
She walked off, again obviously fearing "three hundred dollars a minute". John later noticed her trying to complain at another gate further up the terminal, and again walking away quickly after they spoke to her.
One day, John was on the crew that cleans an airplane between hops. The plane is parked at the gate and they get on at the back door, and work their way up to the front of the cabin, cleaning out the seatback pockets and picking up trash.
John was about halfway up when his boss, who was normally a laconic, cranky sort, said, "Arbelada. Get over here."
His boss was standing at the door to the lavatory. Inside the bowl of the toilet was the object in question. It was so large, John said, that it was sitting on the shelf and the flap couldn't close. When telling me the story, he held his hands in the air describing an object about the size of a mature squash. It had bits of unknown stuff embedded in it, and the top was formed into a little curlicue.
John and his boss just stood there for a minute, awestruck. Then his boss spoke.
"Now tell me he don't play prison."