Leveling at 30,000 feet after departing LaGuardia Airport, our jet was jostled. We represented nothing but a tubular chew toy in the jaws of a masticating, mythical sky beast. The plane’s drop was sudden, belly flop-like, as if an empyrean trapdoor had been triggered.
A woeful chorus of “whoa” filled the fuselage as we succumbed to a gravity storm. In an eyeblink, our heads seemed closer to the ceiling, our stomachs in our throats. A woman up front laughed with delight, one of those insane roller-coaster ride death wishers. I hated her.
We bumped through the potholed heavens. I refused to look out the window, scared to see pilots’ parachutes opening below us. I closed my eyes, rested my forehead on the back of the seat before me and pretended to be riding on my old school bus which had rocked and rattled with similar violence via interconnected, potholed southern Indiana rural route roads in the 1970s. Recalling the bus brought comfort; we always arrived at St. Paul’s Catholic Grade School alive. Suddenly, I was a 58-year-old fourth grader.
I feared the return of The Fear. The Fear, as in fear of flying. At its peak, my aerophobia produced hideous, full-body hives. My fear was so profound, I nicknamed it The Fear. My job entailed infrequent domestic and international travel. I had to work hard picking apart the terror-based tethers of my earth boundedness to achieve the right stuff. I saw a professional therapist trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. I practiced breathing techniques. Zyrtec cured the hives. I learned to stop viewing an upcoming flight as an EVENT. Airplanes aren’t events; they are modes of transportation taking me from point A to point B to point C (sometimes) and to point D (in cases of extreme global travel). The destination was the REAL EVENT. I learned to focus my energies on the reason for flying, not the actual flight. The more flying, the more I became comfortable with plane sound and movement, the calmer I became.
Never had an inflight incident warranted my worries. I never experienced a “near miss.” No oxygen masks dropped. I actually helped talk first-time passengers down from their perches of petrification. I came to recognize commercial air travel for what it really was: blessed mundaneness. Irwin Allen disaster movies no longer gnawed at my psyche. I embraced the boringness of the friendly skies. Yawning, I earned my feathers.
When our plane dropped, the water bottle of the Italian guy next to me flew from his hands, rolled away. He tightened his jaws, and his face went pallid. Flight attendants were ordered to buckle up. The beverage trolley was canceled indefinitely, even though we all (flight attendants included) needed stiff drinks. I death-gripped the seat arms as we experienced turbulence with a capital T.
Lately, there have been a lot of headlines about turbulence:
SEVERE TURBULENCE’ ON HAWAIIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT SENDS PASSENGERS FLYING OUT OF SEATS: ‘THE PLANE JUST DROPPED
FLIGHT FRIGHT: BA FLIGHT SUFFERS HORROR AT 30,000FT AS JET PACKED FULL OF BRITS IS HIT BY ‘WORST TURBULENCE IN YEARS’ OVER SEA
3 FLIGHT ATTENDANTS HURT DURING TURBULENCE ON AVELO AIRLINES FLIGHT FROM NEW HAVEN
TURBULENCE DURING ALLEGIANT AIR FLIGHT HOSPITALIZES 4 IN FLORIDA
SURPRISE! AL PACINO, 83, EXPECTING BABY WITH NEW GIRLFRIEND, 29
AT 83, AL PACINO 'EXCITED' TO WELCOME BABY WITH GIRLFRIEND NOOR ALFALLAH AFTER POSITIVE PATERNITY TEST RESULTS*
Pilots aren’t too worried about the increase in air turbulence. Aviator Patrick Smith, author of the New York Times bestseller, Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need To Know About Air Travel, clears the air this way: “For all intents and purposes, a plane cannot be flipped upside down, thrown into a tailspin, or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust or air pocket. Conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the plane is not going to crash. Turbulence is an aggravating nuisance for everybody, including the crew, but it’s also, for lack of a better term, normal.”
Too bad I hadn’t read Smith’s book before my recent New York to Indianapolis flight. Attempting to get my mind off of the turbulence, I listened to Talking Heads, only to remove my earbuds when David Byrne sang “Road To Nowhere,” a chirpy funeral dirge reminding us of life’s futileness. “...We're on a road to nowhere...takin' that ride to nowhere...we’re on a road to paradise...we'll take that ride... ” It was the wrong time for road to paradise references.
Hoping to bypass the road or flight to paradise, I made high-altitude promises to mind-reading higher beings about becoming a better father, husband, and son. When we landed intact, the Italian and I fist-bumped, a testament to our shaken and stirred mental states.
A few weeks have passed now. Have I become a better father, husband, and son? Let’s just say those promises remain up in the air.
*Editor’s Note: Oops. ChatGPT, which is ghostwriting Scott’s columns until his plane seat death grip subsides so he can actually type again, must’ve mistaken the writing prompt “Air Turbulence” for “Al Turbulence.”
Scott Saalman’s latest humor collection, Quietly Making Noise, is available on Amazon.
