Chirky

I’m spending the next hour on a plane from Dallas, TX to Greensboro, NC, and my: these are tiny seats. I’ve flown the route before, but even with my past experience I don’t recall the plane being the exact size of a .357 Magnum cartridge. Why does it feel so small this time around?

The cabin has a double seat on one side and a single on the other, and I am fortunate enough to have a single. That’s because, in general, I hate strangers and their elbows and armpits and knees that stretch into my space, and in some cases, excrete foul smells.

When I first arrived at my seat, I looked down at it and decided it looked abnormally small, like maybe it had been made for a child. I sat down, and as my hips scraped past the plastic armrests, I thought, “Huh. I better not gain any more weight, or I’ll be like those people who need to pay double for two seats, just to be able to sit on the plane.

Aside: I just looked down at my hands, and the bright glow of the monitor is illuminating the surface of my skin. Combined with the darkness of the cabin, I can see every crevice and wrinkle on my fingers and across my knuckles. Y’all! I’m getting old. Look at all those wrinkles! Get me lotion! I need lotion! Better yet, Botox! Injected into my haaaaannnnnddddsssss!

So anyway, these seats are so miniscule that my knees are protruding into the bald man’s back. The bald man is sitting directly in front of me, and we just learned the hard way that I shouldn’t be crossing my legs during this flight, and that he shouldn’t attempt leaning back. I have the tray down so I can write, but half my computer is engulfed by my belly, and my wrists are fixed permanently to my sides in an effort to comfortably reach the keyboard. Say hello to my organs: they’re leaning against the space bar r i g ht n o w.

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel a little awkward when the flight attendant is motioning through all the You May Die, So Wear Your Seatbeltmotions? I never quite know what to do with myself.

I’ve got the schpill memorized, so much so that sometimes I wonder whether I could be the attendant’s assistant so he doesn’t have to march up and down the aisle wildly waving his arms with sundry apparatus in tow.

Sometimes I try to read my book, but the entire time I’m only reading the same sentence over and over, so aware am I that I’m not paying any attention to the attendant’s speech. I become convinced that he knows that I, specifically, am unsuccessfully trying to ignore him.

Will I get in trouble from some airline-type mafia? Does it offend him that I’m not hanging on his every word? I think if I were a flight attendant, I’d carry a gun that shot Styrofoam pellets, and every time I caught someone paying no heed to me and my Very Important Instructions, I'd pop a pellet against their skull. Right? Because wouldn't that be what patrons deserved for ignoring me?

I looked up and watched the flight attendant for a couple minutes, and then I became self-conscious because what if everyone else on the plane is watching me watch him and they think it is my first flight, and that, in fact, I don’t know how to buckle my seat belt? And then, again: Why do I care?

I looked around to see what others were doing, so that maybe I could copy them, and when I whipped around, some of them shifted their eyes to me. Which meant that I couldn't tell what they were doing. Why am I acting like I've never flown before? Traveling is my most favorite thing to do, like, ever.

No, seriously: I love to travel. That's why I am baffled by my recent paranoia concerning flights. Every time I board an airplane, I have a secret fear of Death by Suction. You see, I’m certain that there is someone – nay, something – with a chainsaw just below me. A quiet chainsaw, so that I can’t hear its roaring engine, and I imagine that the chainsaw is cutting a circle out just below my seat. But only my seat. Not Roger’s, or anyone else's, just mine.

I'm certain that in a few moments I’ll drop through the hole, still safely buckled into my seat, and I’ll fall through the sky, and the pressure of the air at 36,000 feet causing my brain to explode into a million little pieces. By the time I hit the ground, I’ll have already spewed cranial tissue over the roofs of the houses below me. And my body will be so badly disfigured from the fall that I’ll be unidentifiable, except for the millions of needle marks on my hands.

(Botox injections, remember?)

I don't know why I have this sudden and irrational fear. But I can't stop myself from thinking it. Even as the plane goes wheels up, I remind myself not to think about it, and the fact that I'm reminding myself makes me more aware that I'm trying to NOT think about it.

It's a vicious cycle.

Written December 22, 2006, from 36,000 feet.