View from the top
So, Ken and I watched a cooky yet cute movie last night. I had some things I had to do around the house and decided to stay up a little later to finish, and so Ken wanted to keep me company. We chose this movie because of its light and airiness, and boy was it ever (toying with airheadedness, actually).
Gwyneth Paltrow played a girl from out west who dreamed of becoming an international flight attendant on a faux Royalty Airlines. She overcame obstacles, of course, and eventually made it there. Funny thing was, the first job she had as a flight attendant landed her in an embarrassing situation; she was in her mid-20s and had never flown on an airplane before.
What ensued was a full-blown freak-out session, and all of the passengers were hysterical by the end of it. Not the kind of flight attendant you'd want to have if you were a little nervous about being up there yourself.
It brought back warm, tender, fuzzy memories of the two trips (count 'em....two) I have made via air travel. One was in 1988, when my mom, sister, and I flew from Louisiana (by way of Texas) to South Carolina to be with our relatives on Thanksgiving. My dad's military duties held him back, so we decided that flying would be safer for a trio of females than would be driving that 18-hour trek.
We flew a huge plane, Delta, and it was as smooth as satin. Of course, the take-off and landing weren't too fun for our tummies, but that was all remedied the moment our beautiful flight attendant came around with trays of pita sandwiches, Sprites, and of course, those little plastic wings that kids are given. I decided that day that flying was my friend.
So I had no qualms about flying when Ken and I began planning our honeymoon to New England in late 1999. He let me handle all the details since he was buried in last-minute engineering projects at school. I made reservations online with a much smaller airline company (whose identity shall remain unknown), and I was tickled that Expedia even let me pick which seats we wanted! On one flight, we even snagged the first two seats behind first class! (I'd heard the further up you were, the less motion sickness....or maybe I got that confused with a charter bus. Hm.)
I was a ball of nerves as we rode MARTA towards the airport in Atlanta that Sunday afternoon in May. I knew we had a layover in Philly, which meant that we had FOUR take-offs and landings overall, not just two. I had taken my motion sickness tablet, and it was making me drowsy, but I was still very aware of the craziness I had accepted for myself by planning this trip.
One foot onto the plane's center strip and I realized I had made a wrong choice by not going Delta. The seats were a pale, dingy grey....the aisle was only wide enough for a skinny person to walk through it without turning sideways. The seats were placed just so....that when you sat, your knees grazed the surface of the seat in front of you. The windows were tinier than I remembered, and the stewardesses were not nearly as kind and pretty as I remembered, either. In fact, I began to wonder if some of them had beaten up the real stewardesses and taken their costume minutes before boarding time.
The engine's whirr made my stomach churn. It was not long before I had my head in my lap, praying that the gut-dropping dizziness would please stop. I remembered hating the take-off. It will get smoother in a minute, I told myself. I ordered my fifth ginger ale as the cart passed by.
Funny thing was, no one explained that smaller planes mean that you feel more throughout the flight than you would on a large 747. Every time the plane nudged to the right or to the left, a severe case of vertigo overtook me. I grasped the armrests till my knuckles popped. I looked sideways at a girl who was most obviously green, too. Ken steered my head facing forwards again. "She's okay, and you are, too." He somehow managed to stifle the chuckle that threatened to burst out. I glared at him.
By the last flight back (including layovers) from Boston to Atlanta, I was a bit more comfortable with the flying thing. The last flight we'd had was very smooth and not as terrible as the first. I could do this.
Yet moments into the flight home, I realized that the little detail called the JET STREAM was not working for us, but against us. "Mild turbulence" was putting it too mildly. Our plane bounced around the sky like a drop of water hitting a hot skillet. Soon I began turning into this demonic backseat driver, cursing the pilot outloud every time he changed the altitude or direction. "He has to fly, Meg, that's what he's trained to do." "But why is he TUUUURNNNNing? Why does he keep dipping the nose like that? He has no idea how to fly."
And so, the laughter and the stories still continue to this day. Ken knows better than to suggest that we fly somewhere to make the trip easier on us. The place better be somewhere I REALLLY want to go, and REALLLY far away, for me to accept that again, unless I can be guaranteed that the occupancy is more than 60 passengers.
All I know is that flying is not "fun" for me, nor is it something I can imagine having to do routinely for a career. I commend those who do it often, and I chastise the ones who "just love it" for being totally-out-of-your-head-crazy.
Gwyneth Paltrow played a girl from out west who dreamed of becoming an international flight attendant on a faux Royalty Airlines. She overcame obstacles, of course, and eventually made it there. Funny thing was, the first job she had as a flight attendant landed her in an embarrassing situation; she was in her mid-20s and had never flown on an airplane before.
What ensued was a full-blown freak-out session, and all of the passengers were hysterical by the end of it. Not the kind of flight attendant you'd want to have if you were a little nervous about being up there yourself.
It brought back warm, tender, fuzzy memories of the two trips (count 'em....two) I have made via air travel. One was in 1988, when my mom, sister, and I flew from Louisiana (by way of Texas) to South Carolina to be with our relatives on Thanksgiving. My dad's military duties held him back, so we decided that flying would be safer for a trio of females than would be driving that 18-hour trek.
We flew a huge plane, Delta, and it was as smooth as satin. Of course, the take-off and landing weren't too fun for our tummies, but that was all remedied the moment our beautiful flight attendant came around with trays of pita sandwiches, Sprites, and of course, those little plastic wings that kids are given. I decided that day that flying was my friend.
So I had no qualms about flying when Ken and I began planning our honeymoon to New England in late 1999. He let me handle all the details since he was buried in last-minute engineering projects at school. I made reservations online with a much smaller airline company (whose identity shall remain unknown), and I was tickled that Expedia even let me pick which seats we wanted! On one flight, we even snagged the first two seats behind first class! (I'd heard the further up you were, the less motion sickness....or maybe I got that confused with a charter bus. Hm.)
I was a ball of nerves as we rode MARTA towards the airport in Atlanta that Sunday afternoon in May. I knew we had a layover in Philly, which meant that we had FOUR take-offs and landings overall, not just two. I had taken my motion sickness tablet, and it was making me drowsy, but I was still very aware of the craziness I had accepted for myself by planning this trip.
One foot onto the plane's center strip and I realized I had made a wrong choice by not going Delta. The seats were a pale, dingy grey....the aisle was only wide enough for a skinny person to walk through it without turning sideways. The seats were placed just so....that when you sat, your knees grazed the surface of the seat in front of you. The windows were tinier than I remembered, and the stewardesses were not nearly as kind and pretty as I remembered, either. In fact, I began to wonder if some of them had beaten up the real stewardesses and taken their costume minutes before boarding time.
The engine's whirr made my stomach churn. It was not long before I had my head in my lap, praying that the gut-dropping dizziness would please stop. I remembered hating the take-off. It will get smoother in a minute, I told myself. I ordered my fifth ginger ale as the cart passed by.
Funny thing was, no one explained that smaller planes mean that you feel more throughout the flight than you would on a large 747. Every time the plane nudged to the right or to the left, a severe case of vertigo overtook me. I grasped the armrests till my knuckles popped. I looked sideways at a girl who was most obviously green, too. Ken steered my head facing forwards again. "She's okay, and you are, too." He somehow managed to stifle the chuckle that threatened to burst out. I glared at him.
By the last flight back (including layovers) from Boston to Atlanta, I was a bit more comfortable with the flying thing. The last flight we'd had was very smooth and not as terrible as the first. I could do this.
Yet moments into the flight home, I realized that the little detail called the JET STREAM was not working for us, but against us. "Mild turbulence" was putting it too mildly. Our plane bounced around the sky like a drop of water hitting a hot skillet. Soon I began turning into this demonic backseat driver, cursing the pilot outloud every time he changed the altitude or direction. "He has to fly, Meg, that's what he's trained to do." "But why is he TUUUURNNNNing? Why does he keep dipping the nose like that? He has no idea how to fly."
And so, the laughter and the stories still continue to this day. Ken knows better than to suggest that we fly somewhere to make the trip easier on us. The place better be somewhere I REALLLY want to go, and REALLLY far away, for me to accept that again, unless I can be guaranteed that the occupancy is more than 60 passengers.
All I know is that flying is not "fun" for me, nor is it something I can imagine having to do routinely for a career. I commend those who do it often, and I chastise the ones who "just love it" for being totally-out-of-your-head-crazy.
Comments