It's 8:03 am and I'm waiting to board a flight to Oklahoma. Going to see my parents. My mom, really, for Mother's Day. Seth's Dad is coming to New York for their annual father/son hang-out thingy, so basically, they kicked me out. Perfect timing for being kicked out seeing how it's mother's day and all.

I don't understand why people, who are clearly surrounded by other quiet, obviously very sleepy, people, feel the need to speak so frickin loud. Honestly. Look around man. NO ONE else is speaking as loud as you are. Ssshhhhhh

I have a little secret to share with you all. Remember how we were always taught in Sunday school that flying is "the perfect time to witness!". We should all find out if the stranger next to us is saved because it's perfect! They're trapped! They can't go anywhere! Here's my little secret. I don't do that.. When I sit next to a stranger I like to be left alone. Very very alone. So alone that I bury my head in a book from the moment I sit down. I'm really hoping that loud man isn't sitting next to me. I KNOW he's the kind that nervously and LOUDLY asks you questions even if you're head's buried in a book. Ok. Gotta go. Boarding. Layover in Chicago.

10:48 AM:

In Chicago, home of the two famous O's. I didn't realize when I booked my flight that this second plane here was one of those little ones. Dang it. Not a fan. I didn't have to sit by the loud mouth. Instead I was smack dab in the middle of two babies, one directly in front and one directly behind, and one, if not both, had a poopy diaper. Lovely. I've cheered myself with a bag of Chex Mix and am waiting to board the rinky dink. Wish me well.

Thanks, Air Traffic Control...

I flew here today. Another eventful flying experience.

Air traffic control rerouted us due to thunderstorms between Chicago and New York. No problem. Just fly around the city and come in from the north side. No rain in NYC. Not a problem at all. Except that moments before the wheels of our airplane touched the ground, the pilot suddently surged forward and jerked us back into the air, flying over the runway instead of landing on it.

I nervously glanced at the passengers around me as they nervously glanced at me. We all nervously glanced without speaking. After about 2 minutes of flying over New York City, the pilot said over the speaker,

"Sorry about that, folks. We had to, uh, abort landing at the last minute. There was a plane sitting in the middle of the runway."

WHAT! There was an AIRPLANE sitting in the middle of the runway and we almost landed into it!? We gasped. We raised our eyebrows and looked at each other. I smiled in disbelief, a bad habit of emotional displacement. I thought to myself,

"Thanks, Air Traffic Control, for a bunch of nothin'."

I imagined it was a terrorist plot. They all had somehow maneuvered planes to sit on runways so that the flying planes couldn't land, anywhere...and the flying planes all just flew and flew until they ran out of gas and crashed into buildings and oceans.

We continued to circle the city, and a cell phone rang behind me. The cell phone belonged to a man who looked stoned. Why did he have his cell phone on? Didn't that interfere with communication and whatnot? Surely, he wouldn't answer it. Not after we almost rammed into a sitting plane.

The woman across the aisle from me looked at the man sitting behind me, then looked at me and said, "He ANSWERED his phone! I can't BELIEVE he would ANSWER his phone!" She gaped at the man with a look of disgust.

A guy a few rows back hollered out, "Hey, man, I don't think that's the best time for that right now!"

The pilot lowered the plane for a second attempt at landing. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes. I made peace with God in case it was the end.

Obviously, it wasn't. We bumpily landed and screeched to a stop.

Welcome to New York City, where airplanes like to sit still on runways reserved for other planes' landings.

Airport Scene

I flew to Tulsa today to help my parents move and unpack and whatnot. They've just moved from Dallas to Tulsa. Traitors to Texas! It's alright, though, because we're from Oklahoma anyway. I was born in Oklahoma City, but only lived there for five years. It's weird how Oklahoma people have the same look about them. It could almost be considered plain, but pleasant. Bright, kind eyes set against thin, sharp facial features. Maybe it's all that Indian blood. While I haven't lived in Oklahoma for years, I always feel completely at home when I come back here. Awful, isn't it?

Of course, the trip to the airport was eventful. Flying is always eventful. One event particularly enjoyable:

I saw a young, blonde woman in a business suit, wearing too much makeup, sitting on her carry-on suitcase as she waited in the "B" line to board our plane. I was in the "A" line. (Yesss.) After waiting for about 5 minutes, she halfway stood and reached forward for her purse. Upon sitting back down on her luggage, she unknowingly pushed it back with her bum before placing her entire weight on the suitcase. She sat, but the suitcase was no longer available. Poor girl made a ruckus falling onto her luggage rather than sitting on it.

I tried not letting on that I saw. I quickly looked away, glancing furtively at the scene whenever I thought it was safe. A bushy-eyebrowed, rosy-cheeked man with gray thinning hair atop his large round head stood behind her, and when she fell, yelled with an unforgettable Oklahoma twang, "Woah!", while extending his arms to break her fall. He failed at his admirable task, but being the country gentleman he seemed to be, the man helped the girl and her luggage off the ground.

"Aw, nobody saw ya but me. I sure saw ya, though!"

A bright red glow attempted to rise to the surface of the girl's caked on face. "Oh, I'm sure plenty of people just saw me completely fall on my ass. But it's Ok. It's ok, I don't mind. I'm fine."

She turned around, once again, sitting on her luggage, the round-faced man standing silently behind her. With each stealthy glance that I dared take, I noticed the man's mouth ferociously fighting an upward turn, finally quivering into a pinched smile, his eyes glittering with laughter. I dared not take any more liberty to look. I dared not make eye contact with the man. I stood straight ahead and wondered if the look on my face resembled his.

That was my favorite part of flying today. My least favorite part was when, hurrying into the airport, my heel slipped off my lady bug sandals, thus breaking a strap and making it impossible to avoid walking with a limp, or barefoot. I tried walking both ways today in the airport. Barefoot was much more fun.

Code 5

So I guess you're supposed to get you're driver's license renewed when you turn 28. Yeah, didn't know that.

I also didn't know that when you go to the airport and hand your boarding pass, along with your driver's license, to the man or woman blocking your way to the security scanner thingy, blocking your way to your gate, that the man or woman is not just checking for a name and face match. They are looking to see if your ID is current.

Mine wasn't.

Expired 4/28/2007.

The date was 5/1/2007. Only three days expired. You'd think they'd give me a break.

Nope.

Old wrinkled man trying to sound in charge: You got another form of ID? This is expired.

Me: What?! No, uh....no, I, uh.....no. (I search frantically in my purse.)

Old man: That's OK. Go ahead. (writes something on my boarding pass.)

Me: (thinking) Yes! He let me by! Sweet.

I take my shoes off. Take the little plastic baggy with small bottles of liquid out of my backpack. Put my shoes, purse, backpack, and little plastic baggy on the conveyor belt, and confidently walk through the security door frame, hand my boarding pass to a grey-haired man whose belly hangs over his belt, and sweetly smile.

He starts to hand it back, then does a double take at my boarding pass.

Belly Man: (thick Texan accent) Wup! I got a Code 5 here! I got a Code 5!

Me: (thinking) A what?!?!

African American, very strong and very tall woman: (yelling) WHAT? WHATCHA GOT? WHAT IS SHE? WHAT IS SHE?

Belly Man: Got a Code 5 here! Code 5!

Very strong woman: WHAT IS SHE? WHAT IS SHE?

Me: What am I? What am I?

Belly Man: Ma'am, just step right over here, please. On this mat. Place your feet on the outlined feet you see on the mat. Wait here.

Me: No, I will not put my bare feet on that nappy mat. (I stand next to the mat.)

Very strong woman: Ma'am, please put your feet on the mat.

Me: (quickly) OK.

I step on the mat wondering how many other nappy feet have been on the mat. I stand and wait, my legs set in a wide stance because my feet have to be on top of the outlined feet on the mat. I stand and wait, thinking that my feet are way too far apart and that it feels weird to stand this way.

Finally the woman pats me down, feeling for weapons, I guess. I try to imagine what it's like for her if she ever actually finds a weapon on someone. Maybe she starts yelling, "CODE 6! SHE'S A CODE 6! Or maybe she nonchalantly stands and slowly walks over to Belly Man, and he yells CODE 6! Or maybe she just throws down and tackles the perpetrator right then and there.

She tells me to watch my bags as they come out of the belt. She doesn't find any weapons. Whew! She takes me to my bags, where two people go through every single pocket and rub my things down with some sort of large cotton round, then run it through some Star Trek machine. I wonder what they're checking for. Traces of invisible chemical lethal substances? A sharp pointy thing lodged in my camera? Definitely probably checking for bombs.

All because I'm three days expired.

Then she says: What'd they get you for?

Me: Expired ID. Three days old.

She laughs and nods her head, like....yeah, thought so.

What, you mean I don't look like a person you should be patting down and screening? Huh, go figure.

People, Do Your Jobs....Well

During the past few years I have developed a terrible fear, and that is the fear of flying.

Now I love to fly. I do. I've dreamt of flying since I was a little girl. I love to be up high. I even love the snow ski chair lifts at their detrimental heights with only a bar in between you and the free fall down to certain death. I love parasailing. I love rock climbing. I love repelling. I've never bungee jumped but I want to someday. Not so sure about parachuting from a plane, but you get my drift.

I've been flying since I was tiny. I remember being on a very crowded plane when I was about 5 years old, maybe 6. It was storming that night and for some reason I had to sit across the aisle from my mom, next to this tall, burly type wearing a cowboy hat. We were in the back of the plane, and I had an aisle seat, so I could see all the way up the aisle. A man with the shiniest bald head I had ever seen was sitting half way towards the front, in an aisle seat on the other side. I watched him call the flight attendant over and order a glass of water. And then, it being a very bumpy ride due to the storm, as the flight attendant handed him the glass of water, the plane made a sharp dip down at an incredible rate. The man's water, which was at this time being transferred from the flight attendant's tray into his hands, leaped up and SPLAT, right on the top of his shiny head. He chuckled as the water dripped down his very red face. I lost it from the back of the plane and started laughing so loud that the whole plane, including the bald man and my new cowboy friend, started laughing at me.

So, see, I didn't use to be afraid. I was laughing it up in the middle of a huge storm. Why now? Why do I find myself gripping the seat as we take off, praying....Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord....over and over again. White knuckles. Eyes forward. Imagination going wild. Recalling the first episode of Lost when the plane suddenly RIPS in half and people are flying OUT INTO OPEN AIR. I imagine the breathing masks popping down from above, me reaching for the mask, gasping for air. I imagine the ground getting closer and closer, faster and faster. I imagine trying to call my husband as the plane is spiraling out of control to say my last good bye. I kid you not. Almost every time I fly now.

And this is why. I now know that every thing that operates correctly on this earth does so because people are doing their jobs. Excluding what only God can control, obviously. But everything that man has put into motion works well only when people are doing their jobs well. And what I've learned since entering the workplace is that people do not always do their jobs well. Therefore, why should I trust that pilot? I wasn't smart enough to know this as a little girl. But NOW, I'm intelligent enough to know that this guy could screw up. Sure, you can tell me that it's all computers, these planes nowadays. But that doesn't make it any better. Look what happened to the stock market a couple of weeks ago. And you could say like my percentage-speaking dad that "statistically considered, you are safer on a plane than in a car. There are more wrecks in cars than in planes." Well sure, but you don't automatically die if you're in a car wreck. Plus, there are millions of more cars than planes so statistically speaking, of course that's true.

I'm sorry, but this is just the truth. The moral of the story: Let's all make sure we do our jobs well.