My Job

Today’s writing assignment is to write a paragraph about a place where I worked.  

There were five of us cleaners.  Some of our crew would race on so that they could find if the liquor box was still there and if by chance the flight attendants had forgotten to lock it.  When the A/C was already turned off, the plane was stuffy and smelled of old coffee and sickness, like a hospital.  I liked the seat cleaning job.  I would scoot to the middle seat and organize the pockets of the seat backs.  I would carefully put my hand in the pocket and empty it.  I was always cautious as I put my hand in the pocket because I had heard stories of used syringes sometimes being in a pocket.  I only put my hand in warm vomit once.  I guess there was no barf bag for the person.  Then I organized the glossy airline magazine, safety card, and barf bag all in a nice stack.  Next, I wiped down the sticky tray tables and windows and lastly dust of the crumbs on the seat and fold the seat belts over each other as I moved out to the next row.  I tossed any garbage in the bag that was tied to my waist and keep any treasures on a seat to pick up on the way out.  I found books, magazines, a wedding ring, and a wallet.  The worst were the night flights with all the blankets and pillows.  Now I know they don't get new pillowcases after each use.  I could almost feel the bugs crawling on me as I shook out the blankets. As we left, we would spray a nice orange scent and move on to the next plane.

At the end of our shift we gathered our treasures from the night and shared with each other what we found.  On a good night, like when I found the wallet, we would treat ourselves to breakfast.  It was a fun, no worries, type of job.