Fear of Flying

For reasons I may never understand, I am completely terrified of flying. I do it a lot, out of necessity, but every time I reach my cramped little seat and click shut my seat belt, the hyper-ventilating begins. I'm usually fine after the takeoff, but the moments between entering the plane and having the seat belt sign switch off are excruciating.

This last time I flew home, it was especially difficult. It all started at the gate. As soon as the gate agent said that we would be boarding in about 10 minutes, I had a strange sensation--it was as if a herd of buffalo had just sprinted past me. I put down my New Yorker and glanced around me to find that all of the people who had been sitting and waiting had suddenly opted to stand in a clump encircling the path to the gate.

"Sucks to be a Type A," I thought to myself and got back to my magazine. I was in boarding group 2, yet when I got on the plane I noticed that there was hardly any overhead bin space left. I managed to finagle a little area where I could stow my suitcase (which is long, so I had to put it sideways--oops!) and then sat down.

Now I know a lot of people like to stare at the oncoming passengers to do a bit of racial profiling and play Spot the Terrorist, but I'm less interested in race than other potentially dangerous traits. I prefer, instead, to do personality profiling. If the people who board the plane seem nice, friendly and orderly, I feel safer somehow. "God's not going to strike us down with all these pleasant people," I think to myself. Extra points if I end up on a flight with a nun or two.

But if the passengers seem easily riled and irritable, then my palms start to sweat. "We're goners," I'll say between desperate prayers. In this case, the lack of overhead bin space didn't bode well for my personality profiling.

One man took it upon himself to unload the entire bin above my head so that he could rearrange the items and potentially create more space. Unfortunately he was being a little rough with the bags. He started throwing them down violently on the seat beside me. Then the man sitting in front of me came running.

"Hey! Hey! Give me that! What are you doing?" the man in front of me yelled. "That has my computer in it."

"I'm sorry," the well-intentioned do-gooder replied (somewhat sarcastically). "If you don't mind, I was just trying to..."

"I do mind!" The man replied turning redder and redder. And then he needlessly repeated himself. "I DO mind!"

"Okay, well I was thinking if you could fit it under the seat in front..."

"Well I can't, and you can't just throw bags around like that."

This went on for quite some time, and even though it was somewhat train-wreckish, I couldn't watch. It was too embarrassing. I turned red in honor of all those involved.

The irked passenger sat back down, while the man next to me continued to (more delicately) rearrange bags. A couple minutes later, as the man was still at it, the angry passenger stood back up, went up to the man and said, "well maybe I can fit the bag under the seat in front of me." It was his way of saying I'm sorry without having to apologize. Or maybe it was his way of telling all the people around him who had seen the chaos: "I'm not usually an asshole but flying brings out the worst in me!"

Maybe this simple non-apology afforded us safe passage, because we didn't crash.

On the way back to California, I had another interesting experience. When I got to my window seat, there were two men who were flying together sitting in the middle and aisle seats. As soon as I sat down and clicked the seatbelt shut, ready to do a little personality profiling, the man in the aisle (who didn't speak much English) gestured to a man sitting in front of us. He indicated that the man was his friend, and would I mind switching with him? The problem, of course, was that the man was in the middle seat.

Would I be willing to switch my window for a middle? You know, a couple of years ago I probably would have said yes. But I'm less of a pushover these days.

"Sorry," I said shaking my head. "I got a window seat so I could sleep," I said gesturing with my hands next to my head to indicate nap time. The man in the middle and the man in front of us clearly didn't catch what I had said so the man in the aisle loudly translated in Mandarin how the bitch in the window seat wasn't willing to swap seats because she's a lazy nap-taker.

I imagined that the man in the middle responded: "Oh great. We're sharing a row with an evil, slovenly lint-licker. Now we're going to crash for sure!"