Just Plane Scared

I used to hate to fly. Now I fly enough where I'm used to it and I guess I'm a little less nervous each time I fly. The first time I went home to visit my family (after I moved to CO) it was a surprise for my mom. My sister told her they were going to pick up a friend of Heather's and then instead it was me! Mom loved that! Anyway...So, this was like October of 2007 and it was the first trip home I could make since moving in January 2007. I flew with NW airlines I think and the plane was very small. Two seats on each side of the aisle. So, the first leg of the flight was to Memphis, then from Memphis to North AL. My assigned seat placed me right next to a very attractive guy about 3-4 years older than me. I remember he had some faint tropical accent and he was very nice. Once I got settled he made small talk with me and we chatted about where we were headed. He, too, was headed to North AL. Neat! I thought.

I had brought a book to read to try to take my mind off of being scared of flying. I hadn't started reading yet, mostly because Mr. McFriendly next to me was just chatting me up. So, about 45 minutes into the 3 hour flight we hit a little turbulence...it was out of the blue really. I had no warning (not even the seat belt light) that the plane was about to feel like it was plunging to my death.

Without warning (did I mention there was no warning?) the plane takes a serious nosedive and my wonderful knee-jerk reaction was to GRAB THE LEG of Mr. McFriendly.

Now, hold up. Let's pause for a second. I am a very shy person when it comes to men/boys. I get embarrassed and flustered. In fact, I get flustered when a boy has his shirt off, mostly because I don't know where to look. I don't touch boys, or hug them unless I have to because I feel shy and embarrassed. So, keep that in mind as we go back to our story...

I GRABBED MR. MCFRIENDLY'S LEG--no, no, not just his leg...his thigh. I saw what I was doing and my brain was screaming, "LET GO!!! LET GO OF HIS LEG!!ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" but I couldn't force my hand to actually let go. All of it happened really fast. Before I knew it the plane was horizontal again and all was good...except, I very quickly snatched my hand back, turned towards Mr. McFriendly, and said, "Oh, gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry." And you know what he did? He smiled his McFriendly smile and said, "Oh, that's okay. That was pretty scary for a second." and I swear I heard a {ping} off his teeth when he smiled at me. Well, I was humiliated. I mean, utter embarrassment. I grabbed my book and started pretending to read so he would stop looking at me and talking to me. I am sure my face was beet red. And what did Mr. McFriendly do? OH, he kept talking to me. He wanted to make sure I didn't feel embarrassed or flustered OR he wanted to make sure I continued to feel embarrassed (I'm not sure which one) because he WOULDN'T! STOP! TALKING ABOUT IT!! oh gosh!

So, when we stopped in Memphis he said to me, "maybe we'll be assigned seats next to each other on the next flight too. That way if you get scared there'll be a friendly face."

I smiled, praying, "God, I know you have a sense of humor, but please don't let it be in the form of sitting next to this guy again!" Thankfully, I was not seated next to him on the next flight. He looked genuinely disappointed. CRAZY!

Now when I fly, I only fly South*west. Luckily with South*west you don't have assigned seats--so you know what I do? I look for a seat next to an empty one, or if I have to sit next to someone, I try to find a woman. (or at least an older guy.) There's no way I'm going to have some Friendly thinking I'm making a move on the airplane just because we're dying again!