Damn you, Wright Brothers!

I have found something I hate more than ‘Glee’; flying.

Well, I don’t hate flying, I’m terrified of it.

For Thanksgiving I flew up north to Rochester to be with my mom and sister. I wish I never had to fly again.

The flights themselves were ok. Nothing bad happened on them. No rough turbulence. No Engine Failures. No Terrorists. Just the average flight experience plus my imagination is enough to cause sweaty hands and heavy breathing.

I hate takeoffs. And I hate the long wait of departing from the gate to the runway. Just get it over with already! The shaking, the sinking, the super fast acceleration. Is that smoke coming from the engine? No, we are just going through a cloud… (On a side note, I thought propeller planes were phased out by the 1960s…)

The flights were smooth and, even though I am afraid of heights, I love the view from a plane. I wish I could tell where I was, but the constant turning of the plane made it hard to orient myself.

However, my imagination goes wild. What about a bomb? Engine failure? Terrorists? Unconscious pilots? A wing falls off? The toy planes I have played with never had shaky wings!

You lied to me, Lego's!

It doesn’t help when it seems like planes are poorly built. The plastic walls feel like I can easily rip them out. The shades don’t slide right (one flight didn’t even have shades). The emergency pamphlet is old and torn. It feels like all the pieces inside a plane just don’t fit right.

My plane from Newark to Dulles had me sitting next to two German pilots, who spoke in German. What were they saying? Why were they the only ones to go through their luggage during the flight? WHY DOES THAT ONE HAVE A POCKET KNIFE! (Good work, TSA). Well, as you can see, I am still alive so they didn't do anything bad (The knife was for an apple but they didn’t use it.)

 Picture I found when I Googled "Evil German Plan"

Aside from the actual flying part, another part of flying that really sucks is the waiting. For my 5:00 (PM) flight out of Dulles to Rochester, I got to my gate by 3:30 (Another side note, did the escalator lobby pay for Dulles? I rode one up just to ride immediately down again.)

But the real injustice was my flights returning home. I had to take a 6:00 (AM) flight to Newark from Rochester, arrive at 7:00 and catch my connection to Dulles at 7:40. Well, because some pilots didn’t have enough sleep (HOW THE HELL DO YOU NOT PLAN FOR THIS???), my flight out of Rochester was delayed until 9:50 AM, a four hour wait. 

"Let's see. I have a 6 o'clock flight tomorrow. I'm going to get so plastered tonight!"

I spent about an hour in line with the ticket agent (of course it was the longest line) so they can put me on a new flight to Dulles from Newark, as I would have missed my original connection. The new flight from Newark to Dulles would be at 3:15. I arrived at Newark at about 11:00 (the time I SHOULD HAVE been home resting), another four hour wait. At least I was able to enjoy some authentic New York style pizza, even if I was in New Jersey, for lunch. I read through a Time and Newsweek magazine enough times so that I could memorize it.

After an excruciatingly long wait, almost passing out from exhaustion/boredom, I finally got on the plane with the supposed German terrorists, hopped up on adrenalin, on the longest 50 minutes of my life, and made back to earth safely in Virginia.

I can’t wait for Christmas…