Photo by Xlibber on Flickr. Click to check out his photostream.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have survived human flight. Happy Lollipop Tuesday.
Thisweek, I abandoned my assigned status as a grounded biped and soared into the great blue somewhere.
There are Lollipop Tuesday adventures that make me a little nervous or require me to try something I’d typically ignore, or to just jump in both feet and see what happens. And there there is getting on a plane for the first time, which scared the absolute living daylights out of me the way, oh, I dunno – dying might scare the living daylights out of someone. Because that’s all I could picture. All I could think the entire time I was in the air was of what absolute disaster was about to overcome me.
I was raised on a lot of action movies. So if I’m on a plane, I expect to see Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis.
There I was, strapped into the seat in a steel death cage thinking of all the possible scenarios that could lead to my timely demise. The stewardess is up there doing her safety demonstration thing and I’m staring at her intently, taking notes of every single thing she is saying. Everyone around me is busy doing something else.
I kept thinking, Can you possibly review this enough? Even if you’re a frequent flyer, shouldn’t everyone be paying attention every single time? Who knows what we’ll remember in the face of death!
But everyone just tuned her out. Before we started moving, the stewardess instructed the exit row behind me that they would have to help in the event of an emergency given that they were in an exit row. She asked that they take time to review their instruction cards and check in with her soon. But the girl behind me was having none of it. When the stewardess approached and asked if she was prepared to help in the event of an emergency, she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. After some explanation, she agreed to comply so that she didn’t have to move and give up her 6 extra inches of leg room. She followed it up with “Whatever, if something happens, I’m the very first one out of here.”
So I’m right in front of her, trying to listen to The Postal Services “Recycled Air” ironically, and I’m thinking about how someone’s going to hijack the plane because the President is secretly on board and some terrorists want to use him as leverage to get a Presidential pardon for one of their jailed buddies. And all the while, this silly wench behind me won’t be able to get it together to lend a hand and stand up for America.
Luckily, the ride to Chicago is only a little over an hour and by the time I played through 3 full-scale action movie scenarios that could apply to my life right there in that moment, we had landed in O’Hare.
Besides the flight, everything else was pretty enjoyable. I mean, airport security really does yell at you and treat you like an idiot for not knowing that you’re supposed to take your shoes off or that when they tell you to put your hands above your head, they don’t mean like the police mean when they say the same exact thing. And I think that taking my water bottle so that I have to go through to the other side of security and buy another one is a little silly.
But hey – I survived a flight. And since my only experience with planes has been action movies and not many of those folks come out alive, I’d say it was pretty freakin’ fantastic.
Lollipop Tuesday win. ♣
The Jackie Blog 
yay for you! now you can go anywhere! like… LA perhaps? 😉
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that’s a reeeeeally long flight 😦
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Congrats on first flight!
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Don’t you wish this flight had been AFTER they killed Osama? 😉 But seriously, if you get on a plane and see Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis… get off. Immediately. That plane is going nowhere good.
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well done on your first ever flight! I’ve been flying regularly since i was young and used to tune the safety advise out too. Until I got older, and suddenly I’m getting more and more paranoid! x
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Thanks! Well I’m sure it’s locked in your brain as a regular flyer. If we’re ever on the same plane, I expect you to be the one not opening the front doors during a water landing and helping me put my seat cushion on.
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How was the pizza?
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Disappointing.
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Well Done Jackie..what a brave soul you are! And all for the sake of Lollipop Tuesday! It took a lot of courage to do tat so you should feel really proud of yourself.
love P
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Thanks, P! I’m glad to still be alive. 🙂
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Congratulations! I’m pretty blase about air travel.
Except deep, deep down. I wonder how these tons of metal and people could possibly stay aloft? Just in case it’s like Tinkerbell, and all that is keeping us up is our belief, I’m chanting “I do believe in flight, I do believe in flight..” .
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LOL Yeah I kept trying to run through the science behind it but when it came down to buckling the seat belt, all I could think is “there’s nothing underneath me. there’s NOTHING UNDERNEATH ME!!”
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I heart Lollipop Tuesdays! Thx!
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🙂 Thanks, Square
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