The Back-up Pilot

--- i apologize in advance for this being an uncharacteristically long posting. i was on the plane and didn't have much to entertain me -----




I have no desire to talk to people on planes. This is a little strange since normally I talk on and on with anybody who will listen. I think the difference is that you can't escape the conversation on planes if you want to, unlike if you are at a bar or a party or something.

Yesterday, while I was waiting to board my connecting flight to Chicago, this older man sat down in the seat next to me. (There was clearly many other open seats in the area, so I right from the start I figured he would be a talker.)

Without so much as a hello, he pulled out a leather American Airlines embossed ticket holder thing and said, "It's good to know that there will be someone else to fly the plane if anything happens to the pilots."

"Hmmmm," I answered, but I thinking, What?! Is that supposted to be impressive? Or perhaps comforting? I found this comment extremely annoying. First of all, plane crashes or pilot catastrophes are the last thing on my mind when I'm getting on a plane. I'm much more concerned with things I can control, like what do I have enough reading material and how charged my ipod is. Still, that is exactly the kind of thing that would freak out a person that is afraid of flying.

He went on to tell me that he was on his way to the Bahamas. That he went there every month in fact. "Wow, that's nice," I said. I really don't know how to respond to comments like that. Congratulations?

I'm sure I sound pretty cynical, but I don't understand people that try so hard to impress strangers. Such a waste of your efforts.

Oh, on another topic. Last night, my mom and Casey and I went out to dinner in SF after they got off of work. We were talking so loud that the table next to us had to move. That's happened before, but not for awhile. So all you guys that always tell me to keep my voice down when I'm telling some story really loudly, keep in mind that my loudness is genetically predisposed. Actually, if you've met my mom before, then you already know that.