They responded last night with surprise. You, they said, but you love to fly. Or, at least, you fly all the time.
See, there's the difference. Do I fly all the time? Maybe, compared to some people, it seems that way. I do fly probably 6 times a year.
But do love it? Absolutely not. And every time that I get on a plane, my fear gets worse.
Brad and I can almost be guaranteed to get in a fight at the airport because I'm such a total spaz.
And it's probably even worse when I'm by myself. For instance, I went to NoCal in December to see my sister. It was a last minute trip, so Brad didn't go with me. The trip out there was actually fine. But when I tried to come home ... well that's another story. I'll try to keep it brief.
I left her house at 3 a.m. to catch the flight that was supposed to leave San Fran at 8. Got to the airport at 5 a.m., checked in, got a muffin and got on the plane around 7:30. No problems there.
Then it all went bad. It was a REALLY old plane, I mean really old, like the guy next to me said, "This is a Lockheed 1011 (See picture for example). I didn't know there were any of these still in service. This is pretty cool, huh?" Um, no. Really old plane is not something I'm interested in flying 2,500 miles on.
And then the flight attendant gets on the PA and goes into this long story about how the flight crew is so excited because this plane is just out of the hangar, its been completely redone and this will be its maiden voyage on the Hawaii route. Now I'm thinking to myself, "Do I really want to be on this plane's maiden voyage? Remember Titantic's maiden voyage? That didn't turn out so well, now did it? And do they still make parts for this plane to be 'redone'? I doubt it."
Anyway, I was exhausted, so I put my head against the window and fell asleep before we even left the gate. The next thing I remember was the sound of the engines roaring and the plane speeding up and then it just stopped and the engines went quiet. I woke up and turned to the guy next to me, "What happened?" He had a look of confusion on his face, "I don't know. We were going to take off and then we just didn't." Well that's no good. I'm starting to not like this.
So, the pilot comes on and says that as they were getting ready to take off a warning light came on and we're going to go back to the gate and figure things out. I'm thinking, "Oh dear God. This plane is really old." We go back to the gate and they say we can use our cell phones. I first call T.Roy because I'm supposed to work that afternoon and I know at 7 a.m. HST he's already at work. So I call him and try to remain calm. I never told him, but just the sound of his voice did make me feel better. I tried Brad 3 times before he finally woke up and answered the phone. By that time, I was hysterical. Then I called my sis and the fam and everyone I could think of because if I just sat there in the plane, I'd go crazy with fear.
Finally, they say that the warning light was a fuel indictator, we apparently we didn't have enough fuel to get across the Pacific. So they are going to add fuel and that should "hopefully" solve the problem. Wow, I'm so relieved to hear that ... please tell me more.
But now, at 11 a.m., we are going to leave again. I'm thinking, "I'll tell you who is going to leave. That would be me. I'm going to leave this plane and just stay in San Fran permanently." But I stayed on the plane. We took off. I clawed the arms of my seat and fought back tears for more than an hour (during which we took an alternate route along the Calif. coast "just in case.") And, in the end, I survived to relay this story to you as just one example of why I hate to fly.
And next week I'm going to New York.
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