I Believe I Can't Fly

I hate flying. Not just plain ol’ hate when you casually despise someone or something—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 to my senses when it comes to being afraid of flying. The way they reason with me totally makes sense, just like the tons 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.

During the colder months 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, now it’s not the time to travel anywhere!” 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 try to lure me into flying somewhere is something else. All the decadence they offer, they know it’s difficult to resist.

Hey, I get it, nobody really loves flying—well, except for a small number of freaks who pretend to enjoy everything that would put normal people in a frenzy, just 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 a rollercoaster, 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, it looks at me with this secret, smart-ass smugness, like it’s saying, “Go on, 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 spaces. Heights. Proximity with people. Smells. No phone. No internet. Small amounts of food. Shoebox-sized space for peeing. Six-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 three 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’ve 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 Xanax without a prescription until Tuesday? No. How ‘bout Valium? Opium? Anything? Don’t call you ever again?

Sometimes I forget to explain what I need it for.

Why such a drastic fear of flying, you ask? Oh, I don’t know, maybe something to do with my first flight ever, age 11; with my sister, and my mother. Route: Split, Croatia, to Belgrade, Serbia. Flight attendant calm. Noise starts. Bruhmnnhdhhhh!!! Flight attendants, nervous. Pilot on speaker: “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. My sister is even worse than me. Not flying, ever. And a few times in her life that she had to, she says goodbye to everyone she holds dear, and puts her affairs in order. I have no choice, I'm European, living in America; I fly across the Atlantic minimum twice a year. I fly across America five, or six times a year.

Did the quantity of flying make 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. I need a few days to shake it off.

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 wine 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 messed up when the Flight Attendant comes to check if our seatbelts are fastened and puts 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 iPod, read a magazine, listen to iPod; oh shit, fuck! I see someone suspicious in row 24. Is that some nice fellow or an anguish-filled soul? 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? Seven years? 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! Oh fuck, we’re in the air already!

Fifteen minutes, wait for fifteen minutes, if nothing goes wrong within fifteen minutes, the plane is good! 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 during the worst turbulence? Do they want to show off their balancing skills? The plane is going up and down, left and right, but these people are adamant about serving us a glass of plastic water while bouncing off the aisles. Liquor flying out of the bottles, cups flying out of our hands, now, really?

Do they honestly think I’m contemplating my hydration while imagining my body parts in the middle of the ocean? I want to scream at them, the plane people, but they’re the ones holding the bread rolls, and I want that second bread roll. They hold all the power.

Oh, the food is coming! That will take my mind off imagining sharks chewing 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 flaming 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’ll think about not provoking a Sharpie grill marks revolution.

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 was it? Six already? Fuck, I need to go. I’ll be really quick! Nobody’s waiting, just in and out, bam, back in 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, ten people get up at the same time as you and form a line stretching halfway down 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 do you think I was planing to do, relax in that shoe-box for a couple of hours?

Flight 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 both chips and mixed nuts, 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 six 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: “Oh, 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: "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 spent three years looking for, as well as my body I spent 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. I'll be tripping the rest of the flight, thank you very much!