I flew with a flight attendant once that told me a funny story. She was flying with a Captain she had never flown with before and after every leg he would rush back and help her cross seatbelts. At the end of the 3 day trip she thanked him for his help and informed him that he was one of the few Captains that had ever helped ready the cabin for the next flight. To her surprise and amusement, this Captain told her that the reason he was helping was that many times pocket change would fall out of passenger's pockets and left on the seat. He told her that he had 2 kids in college and that the pocket change subsidized his lousy $1 per hour perdiem. Of course she laughed as she thought he was just kidding.
The next month she was flying with a new crew. She told them how nice the previous Captain had been in helping her cross seatbelts and then informed them that he had jokingly told her that really, he was scarfing up the pocket change, still thinking that he was just kidding. The new Captain informed her that the previous Captain was not joking but serious. The new Captain told her that when he was recently a F.O., that he had flown with her previous Captain, and that anytime that they went to the crew lounge on breaks between flights, that her previous Captain would scavenge all the recliners for lost, loose change from previous crew members. When questioned on his practices, the scrounging pilot told the the former F.O. that he usually found enough change in a day to pay for at least once nice meal! Additionally, it was reported that this scrounging Captain would never pass a vending machine without checking for left change!
The moral of the story is, "thars Silver in them Seats!"
WARNING: A flight attendant was once bitten by a Brown Recluse that was in a crew lounge recliner. It was reported that she was resting--not panning for Silver!
