Flying guide

After 10 years of safely staying grounded (literally and figuratively), I finally was able to take the skies once more. And to say that I was petrified would have been the understatement of the year.

Sure, I am accustomed to flying. I did that as a kid, flying from one time zone to another and sitting for 16 hours straight. But like I said, I did that as a kid and my last flight was 10 years ago.

Now that I’m old enough to understand that I’m sitting within a hunk of metal with wings, and dangling my life literally thousands of feet above the ground, flying does not sound appealing at all.

Knowing the escape exits is not enough. I’m squeezed in a hotdog like contraption with about another hundred people in it. If the plane crashes, I highly doubt knowing where the emergency exits are will help since everybody would just be screaming and running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I know how to blow up my life vest. The ugly yellow/orange jacket can easily be blown up by just pulling a string or blowing it up by oneself (though, in times of emergency, I don’t think any person would blow the vest up by themselves, since they’d waste their breath on screaming).

One barf bag (a.k.a. motion sickness bag) is not enough these days. As a kid, I used to throw up frequently while riding a plane (or any moving vehicle for that matter). They should provide more barf bags to those who have weak stomachs. If the first bag is full, I do not want to be the stewardess who has to clean up the mess that the supposedly second barf bag should contain.

Flight personnel discuss about emergency landings and what to do. Each seat comes with a manual of the dos and don’ts during emergencies. I find these nice and all but after riding these flying monster contraptions almost half of my life, I know what to do during emergency by heart.

Sure, knowing what to do during emergencies is nice and all – since it does after all safe your life, but seriously, airplanes must come with a panic manual.

Listen, I sit for 50 minutes straight in a tiny metal contraption. I entrust my life in this huge piece of machinery that can malfunction any minute and drop out of the sky in seconds. After 10 years of no flying, I am paranoid as hell.

Instead of giving me a mindless magazine of ‘what’s hot and what’s not’, I’d rather page through a ‘How to not panic guide for idiots’, I’m sure there’s something in there that talks about turbulence and how to not die of a heart attack – page 58 perhaps, next to ‘What to do when your pilot accidentally flies into a tornado’.