April 9, 2010

Just Another Day

I say too much too soon to people that I shouldn't. I started my new job and spent the last week on the road meeting new colleagues and new clients. I wanted to start fresh with a clean slate, maybe erase the cloud of klutzy weirdness that surrounds me. Alas, I am not willful or disciplined enough to change who I am at my core. And thus I both attracted too much attention for being both accident prone and too forthcoming with information that no one really wants to know about me.

At dinner, I told some colleagues who were divulging that they were on their second marriages that I too had been married before. And when they began talking about the whereabouts and relationships with their exes, I blurted out that my ex-husband was dead, murdered in a drug deal gone bad. Why, I ask you did I feel it necessary to say that? Why couldn't I even have just not said anything? Because I am a loud-mouthed laugh whore. It's not untrue and I am not ashamed of it, but still, what do you say to someone who says that? Especially if you have just met them? Thankfully, most of the people near me were drunk and hopefully will not remember even talking to me.

I felt compelled to tell anyone who would listen how the plane I was on Wednesday night from Denver to Chicago almost crashed. We were flying along and all of a sudden the plane started lurching around violently and the pilot got on the loudspeaker, "PUT YOUR SEATBELTS ON NOW!" he screamed in a panic at us. I think that upset me more than the actual turbulence. He did not expect this and was taken off guard. Never a good thing in aviation.

Everyone on that plane was doing the exact the same thing - praying and clutching the arm rests. There were no atheists in that foxhole, I assure you. I bargained with God that if indeed I was going to die in this United Airlines death trap, could I please die on imapct or pass out just before impact as opposed to, say burning to death in the wrecked fusilage? Even at the end, I will be looking for the easier softer way out.

We survived the wind shear at 22,000 feet. A few people puked into the little bags (why are they so little? And why are they PAPER? I need a gallon plasic jug with a wide mouth if I'm going to hurl.) and a few people cried out, but most of us just sat and cursed our chosen professions as road warriors, doomed to a life of travel size shampoo bottles and airport sushi.

Just another day...thankfully.

2 comments:

beth ferry pekins said...

you are so funny!
:)Beth

judyb said...

just remember.....you are only human. Bless you for going thru that airplane scene. Glad you made it out okay