This Is Your Pilot Speaking...

    Fear of Flying doesn't even begin to cover it. Nightmare on Elm Street Meets Every Plane Catastrophe Ever is more like it. So when Jeff and I decide to fly from New Jersey to Minnesota for our niece's wedding, obviously I was under the influence of a LOT of wine.

    I step into the plane, trying to look cool. I am not cool, I am catatonic. The Fight Attendant smiles at me, but I see nothing but the fear that is shining in her eyes: she knows this plane's going down. Okay, I also see that she is wearing WAY too much eye makeup for 2:00 in the afternoon, and her pants are at least twice as snug as mine. Good. Starting to feel better already.

    I avoid eye contact with every one who's boarding the plane, because I know the Crazy Plane Bomber is scoping out all of us, looking for the weakest person that he can use as a hostage.  I will NOT be the Weak Link. I button up my Lands' End jacket, turning it into a sort of Comfort Coat, like the ones they put on dogs during a thunderstorm. I'm so hot I could pass out.

    The plane takes off, and because my husband sprang for First Class seats (to keep me from peeing my pants in the middle seat, which I swore I would), the Flight Attendant (Ms. Uber Tight Pants) immediately asks me if I want a drink. "Shit, yeah!" I hear myself say, then add to soften that faux pas, "HA! Oh, no, no, not right yet..." Jeff orders a Bloody Mary, which I try not to read too much into. I relax. I take a sip of his drink, and look at Ms. Uber Tight Pants. She looks relaxed. (I like to gauge my panic on how panic-stricken the Flight Attendants look.)

     Right about then, Jeff asks me to hold onto his drink: he's going to the bathroom. I balance his glass on my "lap tray", feigning nonchalance: I fly all the time, and I am very, very cosmopolitan, despite the fact that I am wearing a Lands' End Jacket as a strait jacket/ Canine Comfort Coat. The captain's voice comes on the loud speaker. He's got a folksy, "I'm-from-Hotel-6, and-we'll-leave-the-lights-on-for-ya" kind of voice:

    "This is your pilot speaking, folks, and we're experiencing a bit of bumpy air, so we're climbing to 35 thousand gazillion feet in order to avoid the turbulence that will make you lunge for your Airsickness Bags. Keep your seat belts on so that we can identify the bodies when we plummet those 35 thousand gazillion feet to Earth. "

    I know he didn't say all of that, but he was thinking it. I looked at Ms. U. Tight Pants; she looks okay, but uncomfortable. Could be the pants. And as I stare at her, and listen to the Pilot, the glass-- filled with a very cold, icy Bloody Mary-- slowly slides down the lap tray, and without fanfare, slips off the tray, and lands in my lap. The Fight Attendant blinks at it.

    "Oooops," she smiles, "Do you think he might want another Bloody Mary?"

    Thoughts run through my head, most of them unprintable... basically what I want to spit out is this: "My crotch is full of ice, tomato juice, and lime: how 'bout a freakin' napkin, rhymes with Witch?"

    I (shakily, bravely, amazingly) just ask for some napkins, and she brings me a paper towel. One. I head to the bathroom, which is the size of my microwave. While I try to get more paper towels out of the dispenser on the wall, the entire dispenser falls off the wall and onto the floor. I'm now sweating profusely, I smell like tomato juice, and there are lime fragments all over my crotch. I will NOT pick up that paper towel dispenser from the disgusting floor: I will NOT be the Weak Link. Somehow, I leave the bathroom with my head high, and the paper towel dispenser still on the floor.

    Jeff looks at me as I sit down. He's drinking his (fresh) Bloody Mary. "Isn't this fun?" he smiles. "I told you, there's nothing to be afraid of...hey, Hon? Aren't you hot in that jacket?"