Dreadful Nonsense

I keep going to book my flight for Edinburgh, but seem to be unable to complete the transaction. I don't know why this is.

That's a lie: I know exactly why this is.

I've really got no choice about flying to the Festival this year. Even with the epidural (14 days to go), I wouldn't be able to tolerate the long hours of traveling needed to go by boat and train. I know this from repeated experience, since I've been doing that journey, from Dublin to Edinburgh, since 1997. It's just not possible this year, unless I'm willing to sacrifice the first week of the Festival to lying on the floor of our (admittedly really lovely) flat in agony. So I have to fly.

But. Every time I go on to aerlingus.com (I've decided to go with them because their safety record is better than Ryan Air (I don't know if that's true, I just made that up) and also because the stewards are much, much friendlier, and because you're allocated a seat, which for some reason makes me feel more secure, or at least makes it possible for my next of kin to be given the right set of ashes when the plane inevitably bursts into flame for no good reason half way through the flight... I digress) something stops me from going the whole hog and putting in my credit card details. And that something is my horrific fear of flying.

Now. I know some people have done crazy things like jumped out of planes for the sheer hell of it (or in the name of your Edinburgh show). I also know at least one of you took the extra step of blacking out for some of the parachute jump (and I do applaud that extra attention to detail). For me, just walking into an airport gives me enough of a panic attack and adrenaline rush to get me through life without taking the extra, especially stupid step of getting on a plane that's going to take off and fly in apparent disrespect of God's Law Of Gravity. God does not like to be defied, people. Really he doesn't. Look what happened to Lot's Wife.

Now it seems like every time I turn on the television, someone's talking about airplanes, and more particularly their ability to crash, or at least fall screaming from the sky. Seriously. I'm not just overly sensitive, or going out of my way to look for airplane related shenanigans with which to freak myself out. I was just channel surfing this morning and right there was a blonde American air hostess talking about the fact that there are only 6 inches between you and CERTAIN DEATH on a plane. Now the phrase "six inches" keeps flowing through my brain in a frightening manner never previously experienced. Even bloody Frasier tonight started with a rocky flight. Why does television taunt me so?

I thought I'd try to soothe myself with some dvd action, but now I can't even watch Dr Who, because the beginning of most adventures seems to start with problems with the TARDIS forcing them to crash land somewhere. I mean, I realise no one ever died from a crashing TARDIS (although I can't be certain - JC, did this ever happen?) but I keep thinking of tiny Adric in his pyjama costume hurtling towards the earth and the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of Earthshock and thinking... that could be me...

The death clock says I'm going to die on Tuesday, October 31, 2034. I don't believe them. (Although. Fucking hell. Hallowe'en, and only five days before my birthday. That's just mean. I bet a die of a heart attack brought on by a bratty kid jumping out of bushes in some kind of devil costume. I'm going to come back and haunt them)

I'll book it tomorrow. I will. And the day after that, I'm writing my will. In the next few days, I will be allocating some of my possessions to specific readers. Please leave any special requests in the comments section, and I'll get back to you.

This entry was posted on 23 June 2004 at 10:56 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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