I'll Say Hi to the Big Bopper for You

I have to fly out on assignment tomorrow. But here's the thing: it's on a corporate jet, a small one, the kind you practice yoga to board. And the flight is over various ranges of the Rocky Mountains. I have a thing about small planes and mountainsides. I don't believe in any kind of symbiotic relationship between them. Flying over mountains doesn't unnerve me. It's the having to emergency land into their granite sides and jagged pitches... they're just not well designed runways. Flying over Nebraska or Kansas, however, no big deal. Basic runway states. Land anywhere. Hey: try the corn. Flying over large bodies of water does not unnerve me... unless those bodies are also referred to as oceans. And then, as soft as I think that landing would be compared to the early harvest of some midwestern cornfield, there's the whole, "Let's get out of the plane, float around and wait for a search party" thing... because when I think of ocean search parties, I think dorsal fins and sharky bitey death. It's not bad enough that you have to crash, escape and swim for hours -- it's that now you get the opportunity for mind-twistingly painful disembowlment by serrated mawed killing machines. Sweet.

On the bright side, flying over the mountains at least ensures a sudden death if one crashes. Ooh... umm... unless your a soccer team flying over the Andes.

I always try to dress nice when I fly, though. It's sometimes gotten me upgrades to first class if I'm hanging out in a suit and tie. But that's not really why I'm in the suit and tie. I'm in it because if my plane crashes, I'll at least go to heaven looking somewhat formal, because if dressing for success counts anywhere...

I'd be so much more comfortable in my riding leathers, though. And, less chance of severe burns. Hell, I might even start wearing my helmet. Then I could say to the other passengers, "I really don't like our chances on this flight. Hey, has the drink cart been by yet?"