My Fear of Flying

     My doctor doesn't hesitate to prescribe Xanax when I tell him I'm flying. He knows my fear of flying and that I don't fly often. In fact, though I needed to see Hawaii to complete my visits to all 50 states, I considered NOT flying there. I booked a cruise tour from San Francisco, figuring I could drive from Michigan to San Francisco, thereby avoiding flying altogether. In the end, I felt that would make it too long a trip so I succumbed to the desire for expediency.

     We flew round trip from Detroit to San Francisco. The initial flight went okay. Our bag was three pounds over the 50-pound limit—so much for the accuracy of our personal scale back home—but we were within the grace limit so didn't get assessed an extra $100. We made it to San Francisco and sailed on

     Aboard the cruise ship, a comedian recounted his own harrowing story of flying. It was a smaller, commuter propeller plane (didn't they stop making propeller planes when they stopped making rotary phones, he asked?). They had to re-arrange the passengers to distribute the weight appropriately. The comedian wondered whether the heavier passengers were seated in the rear in order to make the nose of the plane rise during take-off.

     He also wondered why, if passenger cell phones are dangerous if in use during a flight, why not just ban them on board altogether, instead of asking passengers to switch to 'airplane mode.' Can you trust millennials to follow directions like this when they are so wedded to social media? The comedian worried that the pilot could suddenly blurt out while in flight, “Somebody twittered. We're going down!”

     Now many of my fellow passengers found his jokes to be hilarious, but to a white-knuckle flyer like myself, all I could think of was, “He's right. Comedians make their livings off of observational humor that's true. I don't think I want to fly now.”

     After Hawaii and back in San Francisco, I made sure I took my full dose of Xanax before our flight back to Michigan. Then, while sitting at the terminal near our gate, waiting to board. I heard, “Would Dave please report to the service desk? Would Dave . . . “ and I heard my full name called over the din of the passengers chatting and milling about.

     My wife Wendy who was sitting next to me didn't hear my name called, but I was sure I did. Sure enough that I went up to the service desk to ask if I'd been paged.

     The nattily dressed gate attendant looked down at a sheet and responded. “No. We didn't page you.” Then she looked up with an expectant smile.

   “Are you volunteering?” she asked.

    Whatever would they need a volunteer for????? Was the flight crew understaffed? Did they not have a pilot? Despite my full dose of Xanax, I seriously could have panicked here. I didn't even follow up with the obvious question: Why are you looking for volunteers?

      Instead, I waved her off, saying, “No, no, no, no, no. I'm not volunteering for anything.” Then I quickly turned and walked away. Thankfully, the flight back home was uneventful and I dozed off frequently. Thank you, doctor. But on a hunch, when I got back home I looked up the side effects of Xanax. Aha! Just as I suspected. One possible side effect is auditory hallucinations.

     Good to know. If I ever fly again, I'll know not to follow up if I think I hear my name called over the airport public address system.