But it all starts a little earlier than that.

Sitting on my main flight plane (Washington to Johannesburg) waiting for things to start happening. Suddenly this dik (thick) Afrikaans accent comes over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Johannes Corneelburger (name changed to protect his identity, and largely cos I cannot for the life of me remember it, although Johannes s sounds about right), and I will be your head steward (job title change for possibly the same reasons). We are still boarding a number of passengers but just to let you know that if you would like some water you can come to the back of the plane and grab some.”

For some reason, “come to the back of the plane if you want water” just seemed a bit of an odd thing to say, but he repeated it three times at different intervals, and the last time qualified it with “we are busy boarding passengers and we can’t do both” as the reason we had to be more proactive in our water-fetching, so I decided to go grab a bottle.

Very friendly guy, gives me my water, but as I am leaving he stops me and asks me if I used to be in a South African band because I remind him of someone. I assure him that it was very most likely definitely not me. He thinks for a minute then goes, “Robbi Rob, you know from that successful SA punk band ‘Tribe after TribeTribe’ (oh THAT Robbi Rob… no clue, although I had at least heard of the band).

So fun story, right? Little bit of cheerful banter with the head male hostess guy and worked wonders cos he kept giving me the knowing wink/head nor and “Robbi!” every time he would walk past, but more importantly because the beef main meal was AMAZING (yes, we’re talking airline food, no I’m pretty sure this was not a dream although it was a really pretty red dress) and because ‘Robbi’ was buds with the main food guy I got to ask for, and receive, seconds (so good, although I literally had a “I’m Oliver the street urchin” moment in my brain).

(Time passed)

Followed by one of the strangest encounters I have had with a main air steward person in my limited flying history of interaction with said people.

At one point he comes to my seat and starts telling me about this gig he helped organize with a band, or maybe some bands, in South Africa, to raise money for kids needing new kidneys. They only raised a small amount of money and because it is so expensive to organize kidney surgery if I wanted (and he stressed the “if I wanted”part (that’s honestly how I tell the difference between a good head air steward and one who is only so-so) I could come to the back and buy a CD from him to help support kidneys for children (“but only if I want” – see!)

Now I’m not even sure if I do look like Robbi Rob any more so it was a harsh wake up call for me. I didn’t actually end up buying a CD (I know – Boo me!) but I did find out the organization is called ‘kidney beans’, maybe one word, maybe with a Z and so if you Google it like I will but have not yet had a chance to, you could probably pick up the slack for me and help them out.

Is that the littlest bit weird? Have never been propositioned in that way before on a plane. The beef really was good though.

What is the strangest encounter you ever had on a plane? I imagine there are some fun stories out there.

Okay I can kinda see it here

here not so much – guy looks like will ferrell