It seems those bad boys of Al Qaeda are up to no good yet again. Of course it has to happen now, as my mother is on vacation in Florida, K. departs for a wedding in Atlanta next weekend, and my sister, L., and her husband, T., are flying into New York for a week in early September. I'm trying to keep my senses about it.
I have to confess that I am ultra-paranoid about air travel on a good day. Not so much the fear of being victim to a terrorist act, but just the normal gloom-and-doom scenarios associated with flying, i.e. sudden loss of cabin pressurization and being sucked out of the plane; missing the runway on descent into LaGuardia and ending up in Long Island Sound; something important like, oh, say, a wing, falling off the plane during flight; salmonella poisoning from spoiled luncheon meat in the in-flight sandwiches.
I realize these things are completely and utterly out of my control, which is perhaps why it freaks me out so much. I've only recently learned that digging into the armrest until there are fingernail grooves in the plastic doesn't help keep the plane in the air. Regardless, I am a tense airline passenger. I dread the idea of flying overseas, as much as I long to travel to Europe. Should the opportunity ever arise, I plan to board the plane armed with sedatives and ready to purchase alcohol as soon as the beverage trolley comes down the aisle.
The sooner they invent transporter technology, the better. Because, you know, I won't have any worries about something going wrong and my atoms being scattered all over the universe.
Posted by mak at July 30, 2003 11:31 AM