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Fly Away to OmahaI can admit I am only human. Well, mostly human, anyway. And being human, I have myflaws, my quirks and bucketful of phobias. The most serious of these is my fear of bats. Thosedamn little things can flit about like a hummingbird on heroin.But it is my fear of flying that impact my life more than my phobia of bats. I actuallyhave to, sometimes, at my wife’s insistence on vacation time, get on a plane, while I can run,screaming, from bats. You can point me to all the studies and statistics and reports that emphasisflying as the safest of all modes of transportation, but all of these publications are put out by theCEO’s of the big airlines, sitting safely at home, laughing all the way to their home computer asthey deposit huge sums of money into e-banks.They are laughing because they have conned us, the public, into thinking that heavymetal parts riveted together offer a safe means of travel – through the air! We only need to look at nature, with its billions of years of evolutionary work experience, to see the absurdity inmodern human aviation. Have you ever seen an elephant fly? Outside of Dumbo, a purelyfictional, but still personable young elephant, the answer is no! Let’s look at emus and ostriches.Flightless birds. This means they cannot fly. And why not? They evolved into the Americans of the animal kingdom – they got too fat on a diet on McDonald’s and ice cream. Last question:how many ostrich’s can fit inside a 737 airliner? 737 full-grown male ostriches! A coincidence,or are the airline executives just having a wee bit too much fun with us?So we’ve established that a large number of fat, flightless birds can fit inside a steel tubewith skinny wings that is designed, I am told, to carry me through the air. And I am supposed to be so thoroughly delighted at this prospect that I’ll hand over $97,450.00 to fly from Kalamazooto Atlanta, Georgia?
 
I understand the necessity of air travel, otherwise we would spend seven months out of the year driving to our vacation destinations, and the other five packing or unpacking. Yetunderstanding it does not require that I enjoy it. And, really, who can enjoy it? Upon boardingyour first requirement is to march somberly by all those rich folk in the first class section, whowere allowed to board three days ago and most of which are half in the bag, thanks to the threeday supply of free booze. Once you locate your seat, and I use this term loosely for it is the sizeof a postcard with upholstery, you must squeeze into it and watch as hundreds of passengers tryto stuff ten-foot carryon luggage into the overhead compartments.So, ninety minutes later, with every storage compartment groaning under stress andseemingly ready to burst open at any moment, everyone is finally seated. The behemoth next tome spills over the armrest and parts of his body are touching mine! I don’t know about you, but Ido not like strangers’ bodies touching any part of me, unless, of course, that stranger is JulieAndrews.So I slide over into my wife’s seat. Good thing she is so skinny. Next comes the pilot’sannouncement that due to A. traffic backup, or B. bad weather, or C. a mechanical “glitch” (thatone I really love to hear!), or even possibly D. “Excuse me while I run to the Airport Bar andGrille for one last Maitai,” the flight will be delayed. This gives me even more time to enjoy thesweat and odor of the large guy next to me. I think he had too many onions on his Megaburger.Finally, seven hours later we begin to taxi onto the runway. Anyone who has flownknows the airplane must drive from the terminal to the farthest spot on the runway, along azigzag route that pilots learn as a security countermeasure, in case Nazi fighter planes fly out of the clouds and dive bomb the airport. So by the time we are actually ready for takeoff, most of the passengers in first class are passed out in their spacious, overstuffed Lazyboy recliners. Now,
 
if we are lucky and the pilot hasn’t severely depleted the gas tank getting to the final runway, the jet’s engines reeve and we hurtle pell-mell down the blacktop.My phobia hits it peak at two points: takeoffs and landings. The entire plane shakes andrattles, hinges on the overhead compartments screech in protest, and I desperately wish to be afirst-class flyer, or at least licking the last drops from their tiny liquor bottles. My wife wishesthis also, as my fingernails gouge fresh grooves into her lovely arm.Somehow this bucket of bolts makes it into the air, and I loosen my grip on my wife’s bleeding arm. The liquor cart can’t get to her fast enough. Onion breath decides to spill his lifestory to me, and I was raised to be polite at all times, under penalty of death, so I could cannotlook away. Hours later, tears streaming from my eyes, I am able to turn back to my wife. Of course she has the window seat and my eyes are drawn to the vastness outside, and to the flimsywings bouncy on the air currents like a really bad surfer. I really didn’t need to see that, buthaving seen, my eyes scan every inch of the wing, looking for any minute crack, ding or poppingrivet. Did you know that seven trillion rivets are used on just one wing alone? That is a “7”followed by a trillion zeros. Do you think the maintenance people, having given back their raisesfor the last ten years, having had their medical coverage sliced and diced, tested three times a dayfor drugs, are really going to bother to check every one of those seven trillion rivets? What, andskip lunch?So I watch the wings flap, trying to be like the birds, but of course I know that plane’swings should not flap. Flapping leads to snapping. My phobia grows. I turn back to Onion Breathand let my eyes tear up again.Turbulence on an airplane is also very enjoyable. Do
not 
look at the wings during severeturbulence, if you want to keep your sanity. Air turbulence is largely caused by the airplane
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