The Seven: 1. Plane Sailing

Thursday, August 26th, 2010 – after lunch, looking like a crazy cat lady, mainlining coffee, singing badly
My good blogging buddy, Aly, over at Calling People Names, passed on a gigantic, sweaty, meme cape to make me write about seven things. Any things at all, not necessarily things you either love or hate, just seven things.

So because I’m me, and random is my middle name, I’m going to write about seven random, completely unconnected things over the next seven weeks. Can you stand the excitement? Hey you, wake up!

Thing Number 1: FLYING

Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about flying, i.e., I am not completely, 100% “jiggy wit it”. Not even 75%.

Now I love planes. Planes are a weird obsession of mine. I love what they represent, I love their sleekness, their giant size, the possibilities they pose, the way they look, the smell of fuel. Airplanes, aeroplanes, I love them.

I like watching them take off and land and I like loitering in airports watching people going places, drinking coffee and trying to lift suitcases the size of a condo in Miami, onto the conveyor belt. I especially like when they have to pay a baggage surcharge. What do you need a bag the size of Texas for anyway, idiot? Are you going away for a year? No.

My favourite part of any trip is that part; wandering around in the airport, people watching, buying dumb local nik naks, walking the wrong way on the moving pavement and wondering what innocent possession the TSA are going to confiscate from me this time. My eyelash curler (I’m still bitter)? My shampoo? My giant double-edged serated hunting knife with Jeffrey Dahmer’s initials carved into the handle? Is nothing sacred?

So, yes, I am down with all of that. But there are many things about flying I am not remotely down with. Other passengers, for example, are a major downside. If you are a passenger on a flight that I am also on, here’re some rules you ought to know that will keep you alive for the duration of the flight:

1) Do not sit behind me and kick my chair.

2) Do not sit in front of me and recline your seat. I don’t enjoy your head in my lap and the fact I can no longer use the drop down tray without removing a rib.

How do tall people manage to ride coach? It is completely beyond me.

3) Do not sit next to me and talk to me for seven hours about your illnesses, children, husband, job or well…anything. I just want to put on my headphones and shut my eyes.

4) Do not ask me if I’ll swap seats with your kid so he can look out of the window. I booked my seat months ago and I chose the window so that I could look out of it, so I’d have somewhere to lean my pillow, so that I could check the engines were still attached and so I could be sure at all times that the little green alien guy from “The Twilight Zone” – the one who drove John Lithgow and William Shatner crazy - isn’t darting around on the wing, pulling important things off of the fuselage. Plus, I don’t want someone clambering over me fifty times en route to the bathroom. The seat is mine.

5) Don’t stand up the second the plane is on the tarmac after landing. Look at you, all first to get on your feet, wrestling your giant, space hogging Skyscraper-sized bag out of the overhead bin, then standing around for ten minutes while we get to the gate and wait for the jetway. Guess what, genius? You don’t get off the plane any faster doing that. You still have to wait.

6) Don’t turn your stupid phone on the second we land and are still taxiing. People’s reliance on their phones drives me crazy. You can’t wait till you’re in the lobby? If someone’s meeting you they know you landed already, calm down Twisty McPantsonfire. Put the phone down. The day cell phone usage is legal on flights I’m going to stage a big, fucking rally protesting it. Can you imagine anything worse than eight hours sitting next to a brain dead fifteen year old who says “like” 3 million times and calls all her friends about her boyfriend?

Cell phones can only be legal on flights if airlines are providing a lounge for people to sit in if they want to use them. Otherwise I will be buying a cell phone jammer. The only thing I really LIKE about flying is that people can't use a goddamn cell phone.

Don’t do any of those things and we’ll probably get along fine. Well, unless you have an ornery toddler with you who insists on screeching the entire flight, in which case you better pray the TSA did its job with the hunting knife. Need I say more? I didn’t think so.

I’m not very patient on flights at all. I just want to get on, close my eyes and then get off again at my destination. Unhindered.

And of course, I will look out of the window most of the way. Because if the engines catch fire I am the person who will bring it subtly to the attention of the nearest Sky Muffin by yelling, “HOLY FUCK PEOPLE, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”

Looking out of the window has its downside too though. For example, during one night flight to Europe, I spent the entire night fretting about another plane being too close for comfort. I don’t like being able to see any other planes while I’m up there. If I can see you, you’re too close. I could see the light of this plane just on the horizon as we left New York and I could still see it when we were flying over Ireland some six hours later. It was seriously freaking me out. Until it got light out and I realized it was the light on the end of our wing… Yeah, I’d been tracking my own plane all night, shut up.

No matter how I rationalize it, no matter how safe I know air travel really is in the grand scheme of things, I still can’t help being nervous when I realize that I’m sitting inside a giant metal cylinder filled with aviation fuel as it hurtles through the sky at 500 mph.

Does that sound even remotely sensible to anyone?