The Flight from Hell: Blues Traveling

 Well, I hope that got your attention. 

I took a Frontier airline flight from Orlando International to Dulles airport in Virginia. I’m not the flying type (unless you mean flying by the seat of the my pants): I’m not trendy, I’m not modern, and I’m not a “traveler.” I like to believe these things, but maybe you don’t, since I am a millennial after all. To be honest, flying scares the FUG out of me. But I did it anyway. 

Flying was the alternative to a looong car ride up the good old I95, which also scares the fug out of me. Maybe I’m just a scaredy cat. Or maybe I have just become more acutely aware of how dangerous these modes of transportation are. Speeding down asphalt at 70 plus miles per hour…hovering above earth at thousands of feet…does it really make sense to do these things, and can we even prove they’re safe at all? What it is, is normal. It’s a casual risk. It’s a dumbed down danger. People are copycats and anything through repeated repetition can be normalized. Like smoking. Probably more like drinking. And now pummeling down a highway at race car speeds and suspended high above the earth are very real and necessary feats. How far can we evolve and how fast can we go before we all die? 

Anyways, the trip just started wrong. I asked John to drive me to the airport (and Orlando was the only option for a direct flight) and since his car wouldn’t start we had to take my orange pumpkin (the Honda Fit, aka Betsy), a car he has never driven, down I4 in the middle of the night, aka 5 in the morning, and he had not gotten any sleep because he had been up all night like me. Stupid? Maybe. At one point I thought we were going the wrong way down the highway. My anxiety is bad even as a passenger, even though I trust John to death, sleepless in Florida and all pedal to the metal — sometimes I think he is superhuman (he is my personal Superman ;)).

Things weren’t so bad at the airport actually, with the workers being super helpful and the Frontier app coming in handy. I knew exactly which gate to go to and what seat I was sitting in. Not simple but definitely like Airports for Dummies (me being one of them).

Taking off was kind of a thrill, but it only meant that now I had consented to have my body catapulted through the sky (I’m kinda having fun coming up with new ways to describe flying). There was no turning back. Now the flight attendant was describing where the emergency exits were and how to self inflate your life jacket (which was, yes, blowing it up with your mouth like a balloon. How absurd). Lifejackets? We weren’t flying over the Atlantic. Why would we need this information if nothing bad could happen? I was rattled. I started to tighten my seatbelt.

Before the plane took off the power went out. Yes, we were all in our seats and it got dark all of a sudden. I thought, oh my god this can’t be good. Great, the plane’s got electrical problem (check, please!). What if it shut off in mid air? Was this normal? The pilot got on his microphone, “sorry folks, somebody pressed the wrong button.” What? We should kick that dude off the plane if he’s pressing the wrong buttons. 

Every time a bell dinged and the attendants or the pilot got on the speakerphone it got me all upset, like oh my god here comes the bad news. I could feel the plane turn and just hoped that was intentional. Turbulence was an emotional rollercoaster (yes I have flown before, twice in fact, but never alone). I had to draw from my inner resources to remind myself what everyone always told me: flying is statistically safer than driving. I just hoped this flight wasn’t the exception to the rule, and I wouldn’t be like that old man in that Alanis Morissette song.

I looked at the in flight menu, and yes I actually considered drinking. Now would be a good time, and flying would be a good excuse (with a couple sleeping pills thrown in)…it made perfect sense. I didn’t do it of course, cause I have a strong constitution after two and half years sober, and yeah if i could handle my anxiety before alcohol then i can certainly do it now, clenched teeth and all. I had hydroxyzine in my purse but I didn’t take them because they only make me sleepy (and I need to be awake for disaster). Yet, I told myself if this plane does go down I am asking them for the biggest bottle of liquor they have (so that I can die numb, and sort of happy, and with tons of regret).

And landing was wild, you could literally feel it. Departing is such sweet sorrow, and landing is the biggest sigh of relief, and possibly the greatest feat of mankind, landing an aircraft. I could finally get off this effing thing.

And then I got lost in the Dulles airport. Yeah.

Is the fact that I survived a miracle? Maybe. Maybe it’s a modern day miracle every day (it’s a wonder my own negative thinking didn’t bring the plane down). We’re smart people to have invented such a thing, and we’re damn lucky to survive it.

I love that I am in Virginia now, and I hope to write some great pieces here. That traveling shit is for the birds, driving and flying (yeah flying is literally for the birds lol). Yet I wouldn’t be where I am now. I guess it’s worth all the stomach acid. Like the mean girls would say, “suck it up, buttercup.”

PS. Thank yous to Richard Lewis and Blues Traveler for contributing to the title.