Take me home

I hate flying and everything about it. Screaming babies, lots of germs, being packed in like sardines, delays, the security, the same instructions repeated a hundred times (only to watch the same idiots miss the message), the freezing plane temperature, the liquid restrictions. I do not have one positive thing to say about air transportation. Oh and I have done the math. If you are flying anywhere that would take eight hours or less by car you are safer (much safer!) driving.

I consider myself a relatively social person, social people like to talk. It seems like an airplane would be a great place to meet people. Negative! I always try to at least introduce myself and gesture a polite hello. This freaks people out. Not everyone, I have met some very cool people... but the majority pretend they can't hear me. Come on, no book I have ever read has been that good. And news flash, I know those head phones are not actually playing music (I make sure to make my introduction before we reach 10000 feet altitude).

Then there are the people who always seem to be in such a hurry. Believe it or not everyone is going to board the plane. Oh adults, we learned to stop "cutting" in first grade! Do you need to be reminded? If you really feel the need to cut, please go ahead of me, I want to be on that plane the shortest amount of time possible. Not to mention most planes still assign seats, so you can't possibly be trying to beat me to that isle seat (or window seat, if you are like J.L.W.). And then when the plane lands those same people want to be the first people off. Chill out. When it is time for your row to exit you can leave, it is not worth knocking people over. We all want off the plane as quickly as possible and you being in such a hurry slows us all down. Coming from an extremely impatient person, this should mean a lot. If I can tolerate the airport inefficiency so can you.

Yesterday when I wrote this I did not actually talk about the flying, the part that terrifies me to no end, so I am updating now to make my point clear. I would not get in a car with a driver I did not know. However, when I hop on a plane I have no idea about the pilot or his flight history. I am lucky if I get to see his/her face. That makes me extremely uncomfortable. Then there are like a million planes in the sky at one time. When I take the time to learn how planes actually fly and how air traffic control works I may feel comforted. At the present time this information is not in my brain.

In my own professional working world opinion I think being a flight attendant would be the absolute worst job on the planet. Besides actually flying from Boston Logan to Washington Dulles to Phoenix Sky Harbor daily you have to listen to people complain, serve people, and collect trash. Most of you wear fake smiles all the time, few people are that happy. Your ears probably pop nonstop, you bounce between time zones, and your routine is probably about as irregular as it gets. Now I know all this because I have performed your job. Not.

Now for those of you who took the time to read this rant I am not always this frazzled. I just have a strong passionate hatred of flying. Though, you probably could not tell. "There are only two emotions on a plane: boredom and terror!" (Orson Welles)