When I was about 8 years old, my mother and my stepfather (hereby referred to as Uncle Jerry, or UJ... I'll get into explaining THAT at another time) took me to the most magical place on earth: Disney World.
It was the summer of 1999, and I was excited, as any tiny blonde 8-year-old who has never traveled outside the state before would be. It was my first plane ride. Ever. And I was excited.
Who wouldn't be excited? You're in a huge-ass piece of shaped metal with nuts and bolts all over it, which somehow manages to stay up in the air, even though you can barely get a PAPER plane to fly more than two feet, and that's only if you make the wings correctly. But being 8-years-old, you may not consider this fact and would just continue to focus on the fact that you won't have to sit in the back of your stepfather's pick-up truck for 15 hours while you drive down to Orlando for a week of sweaty teens who wear deceitful costumes of your favorite cartoon characters.
That morning, I was just like those kids you used to see in the old commercials for trips to Disney World. You know, the ones where the kids wake up at 3 AM and drag their parents out of bed, but in a semi-calm and tranquil kind of way. Except that I wasn't one of those alien kids who wasn't screaming with joy at the thought of seeing Mickey Mouse. I was PUMPED. I had everything packed, and I had my Walkman player with my Backstreet Boys tape and headphones ready to go.
I don't remember much about the drive TO the airport, but I do remember standing in line with my mother as we checked our baggage and headed toward the gate. I remember getting on the plane, and feeling the jets humming beneath my feet. I remember going to the very back of the plane, sitting just behind the wing against the bathrooms (which, by the way, never use unless you have to). And most of all, I remember sitting down in the window seat and buckling myself in as best as I could with all the excitement I was experiencing.
It wasn't until a few minutes later that I had an epiphany involving a similar thought path to the paper plane idea I mentioned earlier. And you know what? Miraculously, riding in a car for 15 hours didn't seem that bad. At all. In fact, it seemed like the best idea in the entire world, and I just had to share it with my mother.
I turned to her, the most serious look I could muster on my face.
Me: Mom, I don't think I want to ride the plane.
Mom: Why not?
Me: Because.
When you're 8-years-old, "Because" is the best fucking argument there is. There's no beating "Because." Why? Because.
Mom: Well, we're riding the plane.
Me: WHY?!
At this point, I started to panic. How in the hell was this huge-ass hunk of METAL going to fly when a PAPER plane couldn't?! My mind could not deal with the physics of thrust and drift and all that other crap. I WAS 8. But apparently mom found a way to use my powerful argument against me.
Mom: Because.
Touche, mother. Touche.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to retort to my once bullet-proof argument when it was thrown back in my face. That, and all thought processes ceased when the engine of the plane began to rev. My tiny hands clutched either side of the seat as hard as I could, my eyes bugging out like I was about to spontaneously combust. (Apparently Firefox thinks that "combust" isn't a word, because it's underlined in that red line right now.)
We taxied to the end of the runway with no change in my stiff posture. But don't worry, it only got worse.
If you've never ridden on a plane before, this can be a very terrifying experience if no one walks you through it. As we're sitting at the end of the runway, the engines revving louder every second and causing the plane to vibrate a little more intensely each time (and not in a sexy way), they start to explain emergency procedures over the loud speakers. Effective to a point, but when you're 8-years-old and having a mini panic attack, focusing on putting words together isn't one of your strong suits. It's not your main concern; not shitting your pants is.
Thankfully, mom insisted that I use the bathroom three times before we boarded the plane.
As the safety speech drew to a close, my knuckles were growing whiter with every passing second because of my iron grip on the seat, determined that I would hold onto it when the plane crashed down from the sky a few feet from where we were to take off. A paper plane couldn't go more than two, so how the hell was this thing supposed to make it to Florida?
The pilot made one last announcement over the loud speaker, and the stewardesses disappeared to belt themselves in. And then the plane lurched slowly forward, gaining speed with every passing millisecond.
Something I should probably mention about myself is that I can't do rollercoasters. Why is this important? Because. Because when you take off from the runway in a plane, you get the same sinking feeling in your stomach that you get on that first drop of the rollercoaster.
For someone who can't do rollercoasters, this is a reason to panic.
For some reason, my body thought that perhaps the way to counter this feeling was to extend my legs straight out in front of me, pushing them higher as the plane began to tilt off the runway. And so that's what I did. We began rushing forward, gaining speed, and my legs began to rise off the floor. My knees locked, holding my legs board-straight in front of me in an attempt to slow down the plane and stop the impending doom that I sensed coming closer and closer.
Finally, we lifted off the ground. I felt like my stomach had become full of lead and had dropped out into my seat somehow, and was attempting to pull my bladder along with it. And then all of a sudden, it felt as though both my stomach and my bladder were re-thinking their escape route and thought it might be best to escape through my mouth.
Now I know what you're thinking, and luckily enough for me and everyone else on the plane, I didn't throw up. But it was very tempting to do so.
The rest of the plane ride was rather calm, except for an occasional bit of turbulence. But I'll tell you what; the rest of the week, I tried convincing my mom to somehow find a way home other than taking a plane.
She didn't listen, and we took a plane home anyway.
