The flights went well. From the sparse town of Pepin, Wisconsin (population 908), I drove to Rochester with los lovely padres, flew to Chicago, then Miami, and finally Montevideo (population 1.2 million).
The best part was people watching in air ports. Call me what you like, but when you're half boggled from high altitude ascension and declination, wandering aimlessly through miles of car-free air port hallways is entertainment.
The worst part was the eight and a half hour international flight. Although manageable, eight cramped hours spent in a plane is a lot like a reoccurring dream of waking up and falling back asleep but the random middle aged guy who keeps sliding through your bubble is not part of the dream and the floating, freeing, anti-gravity feeling wears off and reverses the direction of your stomach.
CREATIVE SPLURGE ALERT. Yeah, a few of these are prone to happen when I have time on my hands. The following includes maybe 12 percent facts from my travels and 90 percent fiction. This one is about flying phobias.
You pause long enough to surrender all foresight to the flight attendant's demeaning demonstration of clicking a seat belt together and, quite unexpectedly, you're rendered useless, strapped and stymied inside the old American Airlines. The attendant probably thinks of you as sacks of straw suckers. You think of her as pock marked with makeup running the rivers of her creases.
Don't panic. Don't scream. Chew gum in time with your popping ears and stare at the neighbors who aren't freaking out. One of them is reading a romance novel titled Virgin Helen or Virgin Helios. No kidding. Two attractive girls sit southeast of you but they have that lip snapping, gum popping, purse shopping way about them. Don't look up that word, Helios. Don't bother. You're young; go with twenty and you still need to be ear muffed.
Quick list the following in avoidance of plane noises:
1)87 % of all plane flights ever attempted reached their destination.
2)Edison's hundreds of failed light bulbs are like mini planes.
3)Planes are flurrious, not furious.
4)Whether flying a plane during the night or during the day, it's always black and white.
5)Celestial question: Heaven, Hell, in between on flight 1238?
Pat yourself on the back and worry you may never be Shakespeare. A, you don't have the stuff (el hueso). B, you can't dream of the sky when you're in it and C, you can't leave you're hopes and dreams with the stars when you acknowledge them as gaseous balls of condensed heat and light.
Accept your flight phobia, the sweat over stretched muscles, temporary dyslexia, an intense focus in sounds or woooshes. Grip the arms of your seat and fear other phobias. The left turn phobia is still an unfortunate possibility.
When the pilot recommends that the departing travelers return to visit America, cringe. You just landed in South America. Leave with wobbly legs and a new perspective on bloodshot eyes. You're fairly confident everyone has phobias, some they don't even know about.
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