After dreaming her entire life of being a flight attendant, Poole's mother became one in her late 40s – a development that took a turn for the surreal when she began living at Poole's apartment building in New York, the "crash pad" where many flight attendants stayed when not working. On a few flights, by quirks of scheduling Poole and her mother were assigned to work on the same plane, and once when that happened, a ticket agent announced over the intercom that a mother-daughter flight attendant team would be serving passengers that day. "The response can only be compared to that of telling a bunch of kids that Mickey Mouse and Goofy will be on board handing out snacks," Poole writes of passengers' reactions. Once, a passenger got snippy with Poole's mother when she accidentally spilled a small amount of water on the armrest, and Poole was quick to defend her mom. "I am not a confrontational person," Poole writes. "But no one was going to treat my mother like that!.... I stood right there to make sure the guy didn't say anything disrespectful."
