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A few days ago my partner Rebecca and I flew Southwest Airlines from Kansas City to Boston, with a brief stopover in St. Louis.

In St. Louis, all but nine passengers out of about 200 got off; that’s when I took this photo.

The seat pocket in front of me included an information card about our airliner: a Boeing 73 MAX 8.

This was the Boeing aircraft suspended in 2019 after two crashes killing 346.

You can read about why and the recertification process here.

Thankfully I was ignorant of that fact on the plane.

Which allowed me to focus on a performance by one of the three flight attendants.

He looked to be around 35, Asian, braces on his teeth, with a home base in Chicago.

And a style not to be missed.

We’ve flown Southwest for years and know its culture of humor and poking fun at airline routines.

Chicago was the best I’d ever seen.

One funny line after another, timed perfectly.

Delivered with the plane phone speaker propped at 45 degrees and dropped a bit between lines.

Three examples:

This Boeing is going.

If you leave something behind, you will find it tomorrow on e-bay.

And my favorite.

The pilots saw something on You Tube they wanted to try out on this take-off.

Uttered as we taxied to the take-off runway.

As the passengers deplaned in St. Louis, I noticed many still chucking and most made a point of eye contact, thanking, and saying good-bye to our Windy City friend.

When he closed the door for our continuing flight to Boston, for the matinee performance, I wondered whether his dialogue would be the same and whether it be stale.

Yes and no. Repeated and delivered with panache.

Performed for two hundred people strapped inside a narrow cylinder hurtling at 500 MPH at 30,000 feet, on a previously grounded Boeing.

Chicago was a magician.