My Point...And I Do Have One

front of you so you miss the good parts, and with better sound).
    I felt edgy the moment I stepped into the aircraft. That could be why I snapped at the woman in front of me. In my defense, she did ask the flight attendant a pretty stupid question: “Excuse me, where is seat 27-B?” I mean, really. But I see now that I overreacted when I screamed at her, “Well, moron, you walk in the only direction you can, and it’s the 27th row, seat B—next to seat A. All righty?!” That sort of response is probably one of the many reasons why I’m not a flight attendant.
    It was only when the woman (27-B) turned around to look at me that I saw she was a nun. I guess that sort of hatlike thing she wore on her head should have given me a clue, but sometimes I don’t have that good an eye for details.
    I tried to apologize by smiling and giving her a playful punch on the arm to let her know I was joking. Well, either my playful punch carried more of a wallop than I intended (due to the tension I feel about flying), or her advanced years made her frailer than she appeared, or she was just a big old ham (which is my theory), but the nun shouted out, “Owww!” and rubbed her arm like she was inpain. She rolled up her sleeve and … You know, that bruise could
easily
have been there before I hit her.
    My good friend Jasmine (at least I think that’s her name; I’m so scared that it’s affecting my already rattled memory; I know that it’s the name of a tea, so if it’s not Jasmine, it’s either Earl Grey or Hibiscus) told me that a good way to combat fear is to chant. So all the way to my seat I was chanting, “I’m going to die, I’m going to die, oh sweet Lord, I’m going to die.” It didn’t work. If anything, I was more petrified when I got to my seat (27-A). Even seeing the familiar face of the nun in 27-B (who seemed to flinch when she saw me) didn’t calm me down.
    So here I am, sitting in my seat, working on my journal. Hey, there’s a fly on this plane. I am so scared of flying, I can’t imagine how flies do it all day, every day. But, then again, that’s what a fly does, fly. It’s his job. What’s going through that fly’s mind? He’s looking out the window and probably saying to himself, “Wow, look how high up I am. I’ve never gotten up this high, I am going very, very fast, and I’m not really working any harder than I usually do.”
    This fly just happened to wander onto a plane in Los Angeles. Several hours later it is going to get off in New York City. I’m concerned it will be disoriented, and not just from jet lag and being improperly dressed for New York, but more in a
Home Alone 2
kind of way.
    A bunch of flies will probably be waiting as it gets off the plane. They’ll all be hugging, blocking the way. Nobody will get by. There will even be a chauffeur holding a tiny sign that says FLY. I’ll be relieved to see he has friends there. Well, I’m assuming it’s a
he
. It’s so hard to tell unless you hold them really still and look closely, and I don’t want to do that on the plane with people around. That’s something you should do at home—alone.
    Aghhhhhh! What was that? “Fuck, we’re
going
to crash!!!”
    Oh, I wish I hadn’t shouted that out loud. It was just the beverage cart rumbling by. Being on a plane just freaks me out. Any little movement, and suddenly it’s like I have Tourette’s syndrome. Anything at all—“Fuck! Shit!” I don’t even curse. I never curse. It’s so embarrassing. “Pardon me, Sister, I am sorry, I … I was frightened. Pray for me.”
    Now she’s going to turn on that little air thing above her. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I think it takes power away from the plane somehow. I get mad if people next to me use theirs.
    “Sister, don’t use that, that’s … Dang! Shut it off! I’ll hit ya! Shut it off!!”
    The nun just left to find a different seat. Some people are so touchy. I’m sure she didn’t learn that little hand gesture in her convent, either.
    As scary as this flight is, it’s nothing compared to those tiny Buddy Holly planes that I’ve had to fly in to get to different stand-up performances. Oh God, those little propeller planes, those little eight-seater tiny planes where you can actually see the pilots in the cockpit. They’re reading through some manuals like
So You Want to Be a Pilot
. They’re just flipping through the pamphlet trying to figure out which buttons to push to land the plane.
    I’ve got to