Overheard This Week on a Flight From DEN to ATL

So there I was sitting in the coach cabin waiting for the rest of the cattle to board on a recent flight from DEN to ATL. I no sooner boarded and settled in than I observed a young man and woman escorting their young daughter down the isle of the aircraft. As luck would have it they sat in the row directly behind me and the child wanted the window seat - the seat directly behind mine. I thought to myself "Oh wonderful, this is going to be a relaxing ride out to Atlanta..." Turns out the young girl was very well behaved if not a little vocal.

As the remaining passengers took their seats the Stewardess for our section of the aircraft came out in to the isle and did the usual pre-flight safety briefing, as she walked toward the aft end of the aircraft she took the time to ask passengers if they had any questions about the safety briefing, in fact even asked if they were paying any attention at all. The little princess seated directly behind me took the opportunity to make sure that the Stewardess noticed her plastic wings and asked her "how long have you been doing this job?" The Stewardess just smiled and said "well, I see from your wings that you're all but qualified to do my job, but if you must know I have been doing this job for a long time."

"I'm four years old and I can count to ten!" exclaimed the little girl. Without missing a beat the Stewardess asked the little girl to count to ten and the little girl did as she was asked while her parents smiled and expressed their approval at the little girl's response with all ten of her little fingers being counted off in the air in perfect sequential order. The Stewardess smiled and thanked the little girl for doing such a wonderful job of counting to ten and then followed up with another question "have you ever heard of a mathematical concept called multiplication?" The little girl replied that she had not heard of multiplication but she could count all the way to ten. The Stewardess went on to ask the little girl if she had heard of addition "if you had ten and ten more how many would you have?" The little girl thought about it and then said "ten and ten more is twenty!" "Very good said the Stewardess, multiplication is a lot like addition..."

The Stewardess followed up by asking the little girl if four was more or less than ten, the little girl laughed and said "that's easy, four is not as many as ten!" "So" said the stewardess "how many years do you think I have been doing this job - how old do you think I am? If you had to count to ten for every ten years old that I am how many years would that be?" The little girl thought about it for a few minutes and then said "I think I would have to count to ten about eleven times..." EVERYONE in that section of the aircraft cracked up! When the laughter tapered off the Stewardess said "well, I think I look pretty good for a woman of ten times eleven!" and then went about the rest of her pre-flight chores with a smile on her face.