Plane terrified

I hate plane travel. I hate it sooooo much. I wanted to write a blog about hating it while I was actually in the air, flying back to Oz. You know, capture the horror while trapped in the depths of hell. But I was scared that typing the words might jinx things, make the plane crash. Instead, I wrote about the inadequacies of the check-in system at Honolulu Airport, while air turbulence bounced the plane around in the sky. During the worst bits, I clutched the arm rests and hoped the Sprogs wouldn’t notice my face screwing up in terror. Sprog 2 is already phobia-sensitive, she really doesn’t need another one. But both Sprogs seemed fine with the jouncing, thought it was a lark. It’s not a lark. Air turbulence is horrible, all the sudden dips making your stomach flip-flop. Air travel isn’t natural, those huge, hulking metal birds chugging through the sky. My heart constricts just thinking about the implausibility of it. Every time I sit on a plane as it lurches off the ground, I promise never to set foot inside one again. I know, I know, you’re more likely to get killed in a car crash. Cars terrify me too. Husband almost pops a blood vessel every time we drive somewhere, me gasping and flinching the whole way. He reckons my sudden movements are more dangerous than anything outside the vehicle. I really should catch trains everywhere. They hardly ever crash. Well, not in Australia. But it’s not just the fear of crashing that freaks me out. Planes are horrible in every way. The dry air, leaching every bit of moisture out of your eyeballs and nasal passages. The claustrophobic toilets with other people’s wee all over the floor. The passengers who stay in those toilets FOREVER, making you fret about the stench when they finally emerge (or that Sprog 2 will wet her pants waiting). The awful, processed food – particularly the limp salads and uniformly ick desserts – which makes me nauseous and gassy … or maybe that’s the Diet Coke I mainline every trip to calm my frazzled nerves (what do you mean caffeine’s a stimulant?). The kids in the row behind, kicking your seat the whole way. The Glen 20-like substance Australian quarantine officers insist be sprayed through the cabin on arrival, and the foreign hostess eye-rolling that accompanies it. I hate how you can never get comfortable, that no matter where you put your feet for a kip, your legs start to ache. Overnight flights are the worst, even sleeping tablets fail to knock me out for more than a fitful hour or two (well, apart from that time I regained consciousness on a transit bus into London with no recollection of clearing customs). Those 24-hour flights to Europe are particularly vile, I’m not sure I could do another one – they make me want to weep and vomit and babble. Business class, which I’ve sampled twice using other people’s frequent flyer points (thank you Husband, thank you Ken), is marginally better. Bigger seats, better food. But the air is the same and so is the claustrophobia, that constant urge to run down the aisle screaming “let me out, let me out!” and wrench the airlock open. When our 10-hour flight back from Honolulu finally drew to a close, a tired and bloodshot-eyed Sprog 1 said she never wanted to fly again. Natch. I promised we wouldn’t fly anywhere for a very, very long time (well, at least not until her second cousin’s wedding in the Yarra Valley in October). Mainly because we can’t afford it. All holidays for the forseeable future will be spent in the spare rooms of friends and relatives around Australia. Friends and relatives, you have been warned.