Fear of Flying

On Wednesday afternoon, I am flying with my kids to see my in-laws. For reasons that I will not disclose until Blog Sweeps, Husbandrinka is not flying with us.

I am a nervous flyer under the best of circumstances (WTF are those, exactly?) so I’m especially nervous about this solo flight.  Who will comfort me when there’s turbulence? Who will adjust my oxygen mask? Who will I get to shove out of the way and scream “Women and children first, jackass!” in case the unthinkable happens.  The unthinkable, in this case, of course, being them running out of liquor on the plane.

My children sense my hesitation and strive to comfort me.

“Guess what’s white and falls out of the sky?” Young Ladrinka asks.

“Snow!” I say happily, thinking of NYC blanketed in the recent snowstorm.

“Nope!” he says.

“A feather?” I guess. “A bird, maybe?”

He shakes his head and I am out of guesses.

“A plane!” he tells me.  God, I hate homemade jokes.  Leave it to the professionals, kid.

“A PLANE?” I shriek.  “Why does a plane fall out of the sky?”

“I don’t mean, fall, I meant more like land , but if I said land, you’d know the answer right away.”

I hope he’s not a junior prophet or anything.

And then at dinner, I asked Husbandrinka.

“Do you think it’s safe to fly tomorrow?”
And instead of saying, “Super-safe!” he says, “it’s no safer or more dangerous than flying on any other day.”

Which is basically like saying “nice knowing you.”

So, good bye.

And for those of you who will say that the car ride to the airport is more dangerous than the flight itself–how exactly do you think I’m going to get to the airport?!