Fly the Friendly Skies

Dear Readers,

My mother, who is soon heading off to Spain with her siblings, recently made an offhand comment that she would need to pick up a prescription for Valium to keep her calm while flying.

As a frightened flyer myself, I understood her anxiety about the concept of being transported from one location to the next at a unnatural height of 35,000 feet, not to mention the risk of crashing into care bears everywhere. Perhaps my single greatest annoyance is the argument given to me by placating passengers everywhere — “Oh don’t worry, you’re more likely to get killed in a car crash than a plane crash” — as if my petrified panic very mild anxiety will be reduced by simple statistics. In any case, I related to my mother as I, too, need urgent access to medication in order to reduce the profound hysteria mild angst that surfaces at the onset of flight. Yet I’ve found the Pharmacy Attendants on my plane often stall, wheeling their medicine cabinet in my direction up to 30 minutes into our flight, asking that I wait for my medicine until after the fasten seatbelt sign has been turned off. I respect their attention to safety, but I’m often unconvinced that they couldn’t have thought outside the cockpit and rolled my medicine down the aisle in my general direction while remaining stationary themselves.

duck

When they finally meander my way, at least they have the courtesy to inquire as to my preferred medication, at which time as an informed patient I choose the closest bottle with the highest medicine content (MBV —- medicine by volume) in order to relieve my cabin pressure.

Within only a few minutes of taking my prescription, I note with pleasure that the clouds are very fluffy and there are no care bears in sight, meaning they have evacuated to a safe location far from the soft 140 decibel hum of the friendly jets floating gently through the blue sky. There is nothing to fear as I glide through the friendly skies because we all know that one is more likely to be killed in a car crash than a plane crash.

But I’m a little hungry, and I wish they still served free peanuts.

–Troi out

Leave a Comment

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.