I've done quite a bit of flying. More than most people, anyway. Not that I see this as a good thing, you understand. Schlepping back and forth across the country on business isn't exactly the wild thrill ride that it could be. Still it lets me catch up on sleeping and generally communing with my intellectual navel.
Now I usually start each flight with a short burst of prayer, generally climaxing just as the wheels lift off. I'm a great believer in Pascal's Wager when it comes to flying. Sure, I may *not* die and there may *not* be a God up there but given the cost of covering my bets, it's better just to go for it and mutter a couple of Hail Mary's. Try it. Works wonders.
Once actually in flight, I'm not a particularly nervous traveler. Generally, if left alone, I can sit through most journeys without undue screaming or blubbing-like-a-girl at the first sign of turbulence.
Still, there is one thing that really gets under my skin, and that's the 'seat belt / bathroom urge' that people seem to experience. On any given flight, 90% of people who visit the bathroom will want to do so only during times when the seat belt light is on, and specifically, want to do so *the instant* the seat belt light comes on.
Perhaps, given the prospect of sitting through twenty or thirty minutes of bouncing around, having an empty bladder would, on paper, seem like a good idea. Certainly "on paper" would be preferable to anything "on the cabin floor" which might be the alternative. Still, my problem goes a little deeper. What bothers me is the fact that heavy, big-boned individuals are just drawn to me the moment the plane starts to so much as wobble.
Weigh three hundred pounds or more? Need to wait in the isle for the bathroom to free-up? Plane starting to buck like a two year old bronco on acid? Great! Come lean over me!
No, no, really. It's fine. Hell, just come sit on my damn lap.
I mean, if the plane does one of those, 'ten seconds of hell', fifteen thousand feet plummets that I've read about, well, then I'm GOING TO DIE. And I'm not going to die through structural failure of a load bearing joint, or even impact with some mountainside. No sir, I'm going to die because Captain Beefsteak dropped on me from the cabin ceiling and broke my neck.
It's not much to ask, really. I just don't want my final view of the world to be the sight of a four foot wide butt, in Dockers, accelerating towards me at terminal velocity. Please.
I have a plan though. I think anyone prepared to actually stay in their seat during turbulence, and exercise bladder and bowel control, should be allowed to take precautions to protect themselves.
I'm thinking "picklehaubs." You know, those neat, pointy helmets made so fashionable in the early years of this century by the German army. The minute the little illuminated picture of a seat belt comes on, down swing the picklehaubs, just like oxygen masks.
Now, buddy, you may just decide to risk my life by swaggering up and down the isle like the force of gravity doesn't have a hold on you (and believe me, judging by your beer gut, gravity knows *exactly* where you live,) but if you do, well it's your ass too.
And I mean that literally.