Red, Red Wine

I was working a flight today and spilled red wine all over the beautiful white dress shirt of the most amazingly gorgeous man.  

It wasn’t my fault.  As I was pouring the wine into his glass, holding it out over the aisle so it wouldn’t splash on him, a terrible-two toddler darted between my legs, knocking me, the wine glass and bottle, off balance.  With a look of horror on my face, I watched the wine slosh out of the glass and onto the passenger.

Fact of life:  stuff gets spilled on airplanes.  As careful as we are, bouncing along in the sky is not always a smooth path.  Most of the time this results in minor little spills, the kind of spill that is easily spotted with club soda and then washed clean when the passenger gets home.  We feel badly, but we also know that it’s not a permanent problem.

Today’s spill, however, was the kind that nightmares are made of.  There was not enough club soda on the plane that would get out this kind of spill.  In fact, it would be easier to just think of the shirt as pink, not white.  It matched the color of my face.

I grabbed paper towel to soak up the excess liquid, apologized profusely, made the futile offer of club soda, offered a certificate to cover cleaning costs (this shirt was never going to come clean), and finally admitted, “I’m so sorry.  You’re shirt is ruined; I don’t know how to fix this problem.”

Mr. Amazingly Gorgeous turns out to also be Mr. Extraordinarily Kind and Gracious.  He simply went into the lav and cleaned himself up as best he could.  When he returned to his seat, I showered him again with apologies, and asked him, “What can I do to make this right for you?”

With the greenest eyes that I have ever seen penetrating into my own, he smiled and said, “Have dinner with me tonight.”

How could I turn down an offer like that?  After all, we’re all about customer service.  Must get ready for dinner now.