I should have known when the electronic kiosk didn’t recognize my reservation beyond suggesting that I was perhaps a woman named Ann Lee. It is a comfort, however, knowing that the possibility exists that I can check someone else in that is perhaps running late. While I cleverly con the system into looking up my reservation, I notice that I am connecting in a town called Medford. Medford? Where the fuck is Medford?
Last week I changed my travel itinerary last minute and on the cheap. To save $100, I volunteered to take a flight that connected, something I ordinarily try to avoid. But when I purchased this ticket online, it didn’t appear to take that much more extra time, so I didn’t think much of it. I also didn’t think much of the fact they didn’t specify where the plane was connecting. Apparently Medford isn’t worth mentioning.
As I trudge though security and begin the scramble towards my gate – late as usual – my anxiety about the type of plane that would make the trek to a town I have never heard of begins to rise. Proper planes don’t stop in podunk towns. Proper planes connect in big cities with big buildings five-lane highways like San Francisco, Chicago, or Houston. People take air balloons to get to places like Medford. Air balloons and packing mules.
Sure enough, I look out the walls of glass onto the tarmac at a forty-seat propeller plane, grime smeared down the sides and crumpled sunshades propped in the front window like a cheap Honda Accord. Fuck me.
I walk over to the desk in an attempt to get on a real plane and off of this tin can that belongs only in an aggrandized version of Tail Spin, but to no avail. I sip on my latte, staring at the plane with wide and panicked eyes, feeling my blood pressure peak. I should be drinking qualudes, not caffeine.
“Attention all passengers traveling to Medford. The pilots have requested a delay due to mechanical difficulties. Please stay close to the gate and we will update you when we get more information.”
The woman’s voice rattles what little confidence I have in this machine. I run to another Alaska Airlines gate and ask if there is a flight, any flight, I can get on to Los Angeles. At this point I’d fly in the fucking bathroom to avoid my impending doom. The attendant behind the desk does a brief check, flashes a sour face, and informs me that everything to Los Angeles is booked until Wednesday. “I hope they get that problem fixed,” she calls out as I walk away defeated and terrified.
With airplanes, I feel as though perhaps ignorance is bliss. For instance, I might rather prefer to be the last group of people to fly on this crappy plane before the pilots realized something was wrong. That way, I wouldn’t have to know that the brakes weren’t working or there was something amiss with the landing gears. I’d walk off of the plane, thinking everything was peachy keen and forget everything about the flight except the fact that I made it alive.
Knowing that something is wrong with the plane I am about to board, however, makes my brain spin all types of worst-case scenarios involving flaming wires and problems that were incorrectly fixed and, of course, my sudden and terrible death. It gives my standard, run-of-the-mill, irrational anxieties a context for legitimacy. When someone says there is something wrong with a plane and they are trying to fix it, well, then you’ve validated my fear that something can and will go wrong with an airplane. And trust me, that’s not an allowance you want to give my brain. It’s like telling a germaphobe that you can contract AIDS from a doorknob.
The logical counter argument to all of my ridiculous thought frenzy is, of course, that I am likely safer on account of all of the heightened mechanical inspection. Isn’t it better to have a problem fixed then allow it to exacerbate midair? Probably. But I would have rather missed the announcement entirely and been solely irritated about getting into Los Angeles an hour late.
Outside, the pilot and a mechanic stare into an open hatch underneath the exposed propeller. Another mechanic holds a sheet of paper that looks like it should read “How to Fix an Airplane in Five Easy Steps.” I scan the waiting area, watching the rest of the passengers waiting to board. Is anyone else as panicked as I am? No one seems to be pulling their hair out. No one is running around to other gates, pathetically attempting to change their destiny. In short, no one is as crazy as I am.
Forty minutes later, we are asked to board the plane. They’ve either fixed the problem or have given up. I walk towards Gate 12, having resigned myself to fate.
I take a seat in the emergency exit row and carefully study the instructions adhered to the door I could possibly be responsible for. There are two different scenarios: landing on ground, as indicated by the plane with its nose on a green hill and a stick-figure woman running away from the plane holding her stick-figure baby, and a water landing, as indicated by the plane with its nose near water but not submerged - strangely, there is no imagery of people floating in the water next to a soon-to-be-sinking plane. I pop half a Klonopin and wonder if in twenty minutes I will be fit to serve this airplane in case of an emergency. I fucking hope not.
The propellers gear up and rattle the entire plane like a bag of household recycling. The walls shudder maniacally and I cannot help but think that the bolts holding this piece of shit together are under extreme duress. Concrete moves ever fast beneath us and eventually we are off the ground. My stomach lurches in the way it always does as the land gets further away from me and I become literally and figuratively closer to the heavens.
Before the drugs kick in, I run over my options in the event that this plane doesn’t make it. I contemplate if it would be possible to open the emergency door while the plane is going down and have a better chance of surviving a la carte as opposed to staying inside the plane and seeing what happens. However, if I open that door prematurely, would it change the cabin pressure so much that plane swerves violently and I am unable to escape? I then realize that none of these are viable options; if I hopped out of the plane while in midair, I would surely get sucked into propeller and chopped up like an unfortunate bird. I think something like this happened in Con Air.
The plane floats through the ether as though by a string. Now under the effects of anti-anxiety medication, I imagine that this string is attached to God’s hand and I am his favorite puppet. Surely, God would not let his favorite puppet crash outside of some town in the middle of Oregon.
As we begin our descent into Medford, concluding the first portion of this perilous journey, I notice the open-mouthed, sleeping boy next to me is studying for the FAA. After we land, he awakens, immediately offering me a stick of gum. I mention the book he is reading, saying that I wish I knew more about all of this flying stuff and then maybe I wouldn’t have such bad anxiety. He looks at me. “No you don’t,” he says. I jokingly chastise him for the comment, informing him that I still have two hours left on this damn plane and not to give me a heart attack. I do my best to hide my panic, smiling with pinched cheeks and gripping the sides of my chair.
Excuse me, miss? Would you care for another Klonopin?
Yes, fucking please.
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