A flight attendant with the pen-name "Betty" writes in her online series "Confessions of a Fed-Up Flight Attendant" that the strangest things people have asked her for on a plane are actually fairly ordinary items. What's surprising is what some of these items would be used for.

Items requested include tweezers for pulling thorns out of a passenger's butt; a pen to clean ears with; a screwdriver "to take the seat apart;" and a cup, lid, straw, and knife "to make a catheter."