They Don't Use Crystal Balls in Oklahoma

In my 18 months as a reserve flight attendant, I've developed a certain ability to predict the actions of Crew Scheduling.

Using the information available on the crew communication website (what trips are in open time, how many people are one the reserve list, how many days I'm "good for", how many hours I've already flown that month), plus a bit a personal experience (we choose our flight preference for each day, and choosing "No Preference" pretty much guarantees I'll get Airport Alert), I can anticipate whether or not I'll be going anywhere in the very near future.

There are exceptions to the rule of course (people get sick, there are storms, we charter the Cleveland Indians to go to NYC and don't crew the flight until the day before), but overall I know how ready I need to be.

You can imagine my excitement when I (who was good for three days and at the top of the list) saw a lovely 3-day trip with 32-hour layover in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico sitting right there at the top of the list. And, it didn't even check in until 4:30pm.

I checked to make sure my swimsuit was packed, threw my uniform in the wash and off I went to joyfully fulfill my Sunday obligation (thank God for Sunday evening masses!).

Assignments are generally given out at 9pm for the next day, so when I returned, I gathered my uniform and checked my schedule to see just when I should arrive and head down to the islands (I wanted to leave myself enough time to go through Duty-Free).

And so, here it is, Tuesday afternoon and I write from sunny downtown Tulsa (yeah...Oklahoma). Turns out that scheduling and I weren't using quite the same divination tools.

Now, you've probably heard bored adolescents say, "there's nothing to do here", loosely translating to "there's no where for me to appear wild and get provocative pictures for MySpace here." But, these youths could not be accused of pubescent melodrama in they were, in fact, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I've been here three times before, each time walking at least a mile in a different direction and truly, there is nothing to do, save go to the bank, the hospital, church or buy bail bonds (you chose the order).

As for my selection, I chose church. Thanks to one of my favorite websites masstimes.org, I learned that the Catholic Church up the street had a 12:05 daily mass.

So I had a reason to crawl out of bed. And trust me, when it's the Double Tree mattresses, it takes a pretty good reason.

I was further rewarded for my effort when I passed this mailbox on my journey. And yes, just in case you were wondering, you can get a postcard of Tulsa.

Chose between Native American theme (the name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw words "okla" meaning people, and "humma" meaning red), or grassy field with tornado.
In fact, two lucky readers will soon be recieving postcards sent from this very mailbox.

At least postage is cheaper in Tulsa than Agudilla. I wonder if R2D2 can predict where I'll be sent next.