I have this phobia about air travel. I am pretty certain that one day it will break me and I will end up on one of those videos of air travel meltdowns. Don’t get me wrong, I think these people are behaving like assholes and, by and large, deserve whatever justice was meted out to them. On the other hand, flying is both stressful and uncomfortable. There really is nothing good that can be said about it except that it can be fast if going long distances. I have pretty much given up on it for short distances (1 to 1 1/2hours via a plane) because rarely is enough time saved to warrant the stress endured.

Air travel is an odd combination of urgent deadlines and long stretches of boredom. At first, it is all a rush. Making sure your house is in order (iron turned off, plants watered), checking if you have everything you need (passports, luggage, boarding passes, prescription medicine), then getting transportation to airport in a timely fashion, weighing in traffic and time of day, getting everything out of transportation and into the airport. Rush, rush, rush.

Once you reach airport you still have the flight departure time to worry about so you are still in a rush but you must wait in a series of lines. This leaves you in a state of anxiety because your fellow passengers seem to always have problems that causes every clerk for the airline to huddle around the computer trying to figure out what to do for them. Or these passengers might be looking blankly into the the easy-to-use check-in technology wondering what to do next, trying to get the attention of the clerk who is helping someone else. Leaving you waiting and wondering what could be taking them so long? In the end it doesn’t matter because you have to wait for them no matter what. So your body waits while your mind is rushing on to the next step.

Which is security. You think about all the things that you will need to get through security — ID, boarding pass, have you removed everything that will set off the scanners? You try to be ready, coins out of pockets, technology out of carry-ons, shoes and belts off. Putting my ID and boarding passes in an easy accessible place. Then you wait in a line that resembles cows going to the slaughter. Once you have run the security gauntlet, you then have to then collect everything you put on through the scanner and put them back in the right place for you to retrieve if you need again.

Then it is a race to the gate which is rarely outside of security and almost always a mile hike through a crowded airport full of confused people. It may also require a decision. Is it faster to take the airport tram or is it just easier to walk to the gate. If you take the tram, you wonder is this the right tram? Is the tram going in the right direction? Maybe I should just walk and forget the tram. Whatever you do, you will be wrong and by the time you get to the gate, sweat is dripping off you because you either ran to the gate or you worried so much about the tram getting you there on time.

Then you wait at the gate. Mostly because you arrived at the airport so fucking early because you didn’t want to feel rushed. Now you are bored. So you try to eat and pee because you don’t know when you are going to be able to do either again. Wait some more. When your flight is finally called, you wait in another line to board. Once on board, you have struggle to find overhead space, under the seat space, retrieve any items in your carry-on that might relieve the next hours of endless boredom. Once seated you resign yourself to being crammed, into a space, that lets face it, no human being should have to endure. I don’t really now what configuration of 3 people can sit comfortably in an economy seat in a modern airplane, but I have yet to experience it.

And this is if everything goes right. Throw in flight delays, missed connections, and cancelled flights and the stress becomes even more intense. So while I can’t approve of these people’s meltdown behavior, I can fully appreciate snapping at some point during the air travel experience. Indeed, I am surprised that airport meltdowns aren’t more frequent. All of which to say that I might be persuaded to wear a t-shirt with your company logo on it for a price because when I do breakdown I am fairly certain there will be an internet video involved because if I am going to be banned from air travel for good, I am going to make my rants and raves worthwhile. So even though I will be ranting and raving, I will guarantee that my t-shirt will get the needed attention it deserves. Keep in mind, there is no such thing as bad publicity.