Flying

Four days to go! I will board my flight and head into the air ultimatly to end up landing in one piece at New Orleans. My friend will be there to pick us up and take us to their new home. I am so excited as I have not seen her or her husband in a very long time since they moved from California to Mississippi.

I do not do big commercial airplanes well. My brother flys small aircraft and I have a blast when he does stunts trying to scare his sister. I have no fear of jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on, it is a gas, pretending to be a bird, yeh! But, there is something about the giant cigars with wings stuck on them that bugs the heck out of me. Maybe it is being seated along with a hundred other plus souls in a tube piloted by strangers – umm no real logical explaination – I just hate it.

Last August we flew to Vermont. I spent most of the flight pretending I was somewhere else and when that did not work, I tried to take pictures out the tiny window and identify any land features I could make out through the clouds. It was annoying at our layover to not have a lighter or a book of matches. Even if I wanted to chance going outside for a quick smoke, I would be reduced to begging to perfect strangers for a light. One gal on our flight was detained because she had a lighter in her pocket. Scared the heck out of her, they pulled her out of line and off she went. She told me later she had forgotten it was there and the experience although the security personnel were pleasant, was in her words “freaky man, freaky”.

I somehow felt more secure when everybody had to wait in line to be scanned along with all his or her carry on luggage. I found it reassuring that my luggage had been gone through and checked. They even left a polite little memo advising me that it had been searched. It is not that I am afraid of dying if it is my time to go but I really do not want to go because some fanatical nut case decide that it was his or her turn to go while we are 35,000 thousand miles up in a metallic cylinder without a parachute

I guess there are some impositions on my time and privacy I am willing to submit to in order to gain a little sense of security.