One of the things I love most about working for Southwest is that you can never really anticipate what exactly you’ll be doing from day to day. 

One day you can be called on to go over to Love Field to help escort Mikel Gorbachev through the airport (the best part was when something caught his eye at the Everything $10 Gift Shop) and then the next day be dripping sweat from counting and loading thousands of jars of peanut butter.  Over the years there have been countless times when I looked over at a Coworker and said, “Do you believe that we get paid to do this?”

The latest random event came courtesy of my newest Coworker, Catherine Lamb, who came over to my group from Flight Operations.  One day about a month ago, I was explaining to my cubemates that I was considering this my summer of random events—that I would be trying new things, and the more random the better.  This is when Catherine chimed in and said, “Well, tomorrow is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a, so how about joining me and some of my Flight Ops friends for lunch? We are dressing up like cows and getting a free combo meal!” 

I was floored—what a beautifully random addition to my summer.  Of course I would go. I mean who doesn’t love Chick-fil-a, much less FREE Chick-fil-a! 

So the next day Catherine and I headed over to Flight Ops to get all Cowed-up for lunch.  The girls had made me my very own cow costume out of felt and a disposable hazmat suit—it was adorable!  

Enroute to the restaurant, I learned that this is the second year that the Flight Ops girls have done this and that the manager of the Chick-fil-a we were going to was very excited about us coming.  And boy was he ever!

Once we got there, Chick-fil-a manager Scott Mayes gave us the V.I.C. (Very Important Cow) treatment.  He had reserved tables for our herd of 11 and brought us brownies and drink refills. 

Children and adults alike stared at us with amusement.  People asked to take their picture with us.  Everyone was curious about where we came from. Someone even asked if we were a sorority.  We responded with “Nope.  We’re from Southwest Airlines!”  The lady just laughed and said, “Of course you are … I love Southwest!”  We simply smiled and said, “So do we!”