I Believe I Can't Fly
Written by Miranda Vidak
6/18/20107 min read
I hate flying. Not just plain ol’ hate when you want the object of your disdain not existing, I repel flying. I hate it in the burn in hell kind of hate.
Oh, shit! Why did I use the burn-in-hell comparison?
Why did I use the word burn when talking about flying? That’s it, some Gods of flying or airplanes are surely going to burn my plane now. But first, they’ll have to push me into one!
I love it when people try to talk into my senses when it comes to being afraid of flying. The way they reason with me totally makes sense, just like the billion pounds of iron being in the air makes sense.
My favorite one is when they tell me you’re more likely to get hurt or die crossing the street. Them being the street-crossing experts and all. I never understood why they’re telling me that. Was that supposed to make me feel better? Cuz it doesn’t. It only makes me more afraid of crossing the street.
For most of the year, I’m safe. I successfully manipulate all those around me into not trying to put me on a plane; “but it’s so cold there”, “why would I come, it’s so boring there”, “I have to work so much, don’t have the time....”.
But summertime is a struggle. It’s the time of the year when all the excuses not to fly - fly out of the window. What is one to offer when trying to refuse to get on a plane in the summertime? “No, I really don’t like vacations”?
And these people are pros, let me tell you. The way they’re trying to lure me in to fly somewhere is something else. All the decadence they’re offering, they KNOW it’s difficult to resist.
Hey, I get it, nobody really really likes flying, well, with the exception of a small number of freaks who pretend to enjoy everything that would put normal people in a frenzy, so they appear special. “You don’t like turbulence, Miranda?”, “Why?!”,”I just love it, going up and down, left and right, shaking, it’s like I’m on roller-coaster, it’s so much fun!”
Um, ok now. Down boy.
It’s not just flying I hate, it’s the plane itself. There’s just something so pointy, so poking, so vile about the plane and its ugly face. When I walk towards it to get in, he looks at me with this secret smart-ass plane smugness, like it’s saying - “Go in love, just step in. And I’ll decide if I’ll let you out”.
Flying the plane represents everything I repel in life, even before I step foot in it. Closed space. Heights. Proximity with people. Smells. No phone. No internet. Small amounts of food. Shoebox-size space for peeing. 6-inch space for my 45-inch legs. Just one bread roll per person.
Sorry, but the bread part is a deal breaker. How dare you?
I get nervous 3 weeks prior to flying. I run around trying to figure out how to beat my fear this particular time. I call people asking them if they heard about any new drug, pill, or anything that would work with my fright; I send them texts with the following content: “Do you know how to get Zanax without a prescription until Tuesday? No. How ‘bout Valium? Opium? Anything? Not to call you anymore, ever?”
Sometimes I forget to explain why I need it for.
Why that drastic with my fear of flying, you ask? I don’t know, maybe something to do with my first flight ever. Age 11, route: Split, Croatia - Belgrade, Serbia. Flight attendant calm. Noise: bruhmnnhdhhhh!!! Flight attendants nervous. Pilot on speaker: “Dear ladies and gents, our engine just died. But not to worry. We have the reserved one to fly with.”
Flight attendant looking like the kid from ‘Sixth Sense’.
My Mother looking like a newborn vampire.
The rest I refuse to relive. It’s imprinted deep down in my 11-year-old fucked up consciousness.
I made it to the ground. But my mind never actually made it back to the ground. Having been born in Europe and living in America; I fly the Atlantic two times a year. I fly across America a couple of times a year. Did the quantity of flying made it better? No.
I step onto the plane with a nervous breakdown; I fly the plane on the verge of cardiac arrest; I get off the plane in a coma.
Yeah, maybe a dash better.
Waiting to take off is the worst. When I see all the happy campers around me laughing and fooling around, I'm bursting with jealousy, I hate them all. I do not move, I do not blink, I take my Xanax.....it’s still not working, I take Valium....nothing still, I ask the Flight Attendant to bring me some vine before we take off, I mix it all together, and wait for everything to kick in.....still nothing, my nervousness is canceling out the calming process. Then my calming process gets seriously fucked up when the Flight Attendant comes to see if our belts are tied and to put our seats in an upright position.
See that bugs me, right there. Upright position rule. Let me lean back, woman, that one inch separates my torment from my trance.
Still nothing. Hyperventilating.
Read a magazine, listen to an i-pod, read a magazine, listen to i-pod.....o shit, fuck! I see someone suspicious in row 24. Is that some nice fellow or an anguish-filled soul? O, now that I think about it, everybody can be an anguish-filled soul who wants to blow this plane up! Hell even this friend of mine flying with me. How long do I know him? 7 years? Fuck it, that’s nothing!
What does he have in his bag? Did I see him pack? What do I really know about him? I’ll keep my eye on him...O fuck, we’re in the air already!
Fifteen minutes, wait for fifteen minutes, if nothing goes wrong within fifteen minutes, the plane is aight! How long has it been? What’s that noise?! That’s it, we’re going down! Look at that chick next to me playing with that air thing above us! Do not touch anything, stupid, who knows what you can ruin by touching buttons, just don’t touch ANYTHING on this plane! It might be taking power away from the engine, and they just don’t want to tell us!
Give me another bottle of wine. Hold the vine, make it vodka!
Brummnnsnshddg!!! That’s it, we’re going down! Oh, it’s just the food cart growling down the aisle. Have you ever noticed how these plane people always get that cart out when there’s the worst turbulence? The plane is going up and down, left and right - but these people are adamant to serve us a glass of plastic water while bouncing off the aisles, left and right. Liquor flying out of the bottles, cups flying out of our hands, really?
Now?
Do you honestly think I’m thinking about how to hydrate while I’m imagining my body parts in the middle of the Ocean? I want to scream at them, the plane people, but they are the ones holding the bread rolls, and I want that second bread roll. They have the power.
Oh, the food is coming, great. That’ll take my mind off imagining sharks swallowing my body parts for a couple of minutes. Wonder how we all get hyped up about that tiny, shitty plane meal, the one that we wouldn’t serve our dog on the ground?
Everything is so unreal in the air. Especially the meat with the grill marks on it, like we’re supposed to believe there’s a big ass flamin’ grill in the back of the plane. More like a couple of sharpies they used to draw grill lines on each side.
Give me that second bread roll woman, and I might not provoke the revolution about homemade sharpie grill marks!
Time to go to the bathroom. I dread this action. I don’t want to get up and walk around, what if some anguish-filled soul uses me as a bargaining chip?!
I’ll hold it in.
How many hours it was? Six already? Fuck, I need to go. I’ll be really quick! Nobody’s waiting, just in and out, bam, back on my seat, tied up! Do you ever look up to the bathroom and see no one there, you get up, and all of a sudden 10 people get up at the same time as you and form a line stretching to half the aisle?
Shit, I disheveled two nice people with my 6 ft body while getting up, now I have to wait. Plane bathrooms are the worst. Small. Smelly. Scary. How can people have sex in there? I can barely sit. Oh, and that sign blinking you should return to your seat? Really? What'd you think I’ll do, relax in that beauty for couple of hours?
Plane people, attendants, don’t like me either. I ask for liquor before we even take off, I ask about the second bread roll, I wait to see what the other meal option looks like - and if I like it better I always switch, I ask for chips and mixed nuts both, and I pull their skirt almost every time they pass by with a question - “Is this turbulence normal?”
Don’t get prissy with me plane person, I didn’t get online for 6 hours already. I’m running low.
Oh my God! The turbulence is so strong! I pull the first skirt passing by - “Miss, is this normal?!”The answer. German accent, broken English - “O, you want to know about turbulence, Miss. Yes, we will have strong turbulence above Las Vegas, but don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it will be!”The zombie, previously known as Miranda - “Uhm, actually I was asking you about THIS turbulence right now. Are you telling me there’s bigger turbulence coming?!”
The answer - “Oooo, this is nothing Miss, if you see us standing up, you can be sure it’s nothing dangerous” - says the attendant in a skirt while bouncing off aisle to aisle, roof to floor.
“Do you need another drink, Miss?”
“I know what you need, you need a snack, you’ll feel so much better! Let me bring it for you!
”Yes, you are so right. You know me so well. The Stewardess and a psychic, all in one. While imagining my biker boots I spend 3 years looking for, as well as my body I spend 30 years looking after - being butchered by sharks at the bottom of the Ocean, the snack is what I need to make it all better.
Why didn’t I think of that?
"Maybe you could just close your eyes and relax a bit?"
Yeah, like I'm going to take the advice from people who voluntarily go through this torment for a living; uhm, no.
I'll be tripping the rest of the flight, thank you very much. Now go get me that bottle of whiskey.