Fond Farewell

Here's a fun fact about myself that I didn't realize until about twelve hours ago.

I am terrified of taking flights.

Not so much the actual flying part. Hey, that's totally out of my control. Once we're hurtling through in a big metal tube, that's on you, Mr. Pilot. The worst part of actually flying for me has to do with the whole ear-popping phenomenon. (Side effect from having ruptured my eardrums just sitting in my dorm room, watching a movie. It makes you a little gun shy with any changes in eardrum pressure.)

But my stomach is in knots, I feel all jittery, and I keep playing over and over in my mind how this is going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

I'm talking about the whole airport experience.

It's like, as soon as I walk through those automatic doors, I'm develop a mild form of autism. Can't read social cues, feel overwhelmed by signage, don't understand what the blazered people around me want. (TICKET? ID? BAG? HIGH FIVE?) In fact, one time, upon approaching security, I saw a TSA attendant stretch out his hand to me. He was reaching for my ticket. I instead dumped all of my spare change and my earrings into his hands.

I have night terrors about not remembering to get that pink tag for my carry-on bag, so I can't put my suitcase under the plane, so I wind up trying to jam it into an overhead compartment, but it won't fit, so instead they just leave me standing on the runway. Which is when I discover that I dropped my keys onto my seat. And now don't have any keys. I'm stranded at the airport. And I am going to die here. Forever haunting Terminal B.

(In actuality, I totally front through the entire process. I paint on a patina of boredom across my face, just a jaded jetsetter trying to get through TSA checkpoints. So I probably don't stick out much overall. But inside that cool, collected exterior is a litter of jittery gerbils, spazzing out slamming noggins-first into walls.)

So I'm typing this during the fifteen minutes before I leave for the airport. If I don't make it (meaning, I die of embarrassment at the ticket counter), think of me fondly. Think of me, bright and beaming, cracking jokes and dazzling coworkers at meeting with my wit. Don't think of me, sitting on the linoleum airport floor, flop sweating and crying into a bag of overly-priced Combos.