Airplane!

Just the other day, a friend shot some video of his flight landing at a major US airport. The footage was spectacular, stunning, awe-inspiring and outright beautiful. The video was enhanced by his addition of wonderful, exciting music; something famous, I think. He put his artistic endeavor on his Facebook page and shared it with the world (or, at least people who are linked in as his FB buds). I watched his video and sighed - it was truly magical. Alas, when the screen showed his 'out the window' view of the planes very final descent, I had to look away - my stomach knotted, I began to perspire and I had an insane desire to run out of the room. Yes, you know my dirty secret - I am afraid of flying (Hah! That's putting it mildly!). And, it is TOTALLY a control thing with me. For years, I flew in tiny, laughably small planes, swooping over vast expanses of the southeastern US for my work. As long as I could reach over the pilot's shoulder and take charge of the aircraft at a seconds notice, I was fine. See, in my head, as long as I was watching the pilot and approving their every move, we were good. Case in point: Once, I was passenger in a puddle jumper that STALLED IN MID-FLIGHT. Did I panic when the dash light emblazoned with ENGINE STALL WARNING flashed on and off? Which I could plainly see because I was less than 2 feet away? Did the excruciatingly loud buzzer alerting us that the engine had stalled cause me duress? You betcha. But, I knew I could 'will' the pilot into fixing the situation, or 'yell' the pilot into fixing the situation, or if needed, SMACK the pilot 'upside his head' to get the situation fixed. And, if none of that worked, I could ruthlessly shove the pilot out from behind the controls, and I could take over; restart the engine and safely fly us to our destination. (cue applause: Yippee... Penny has once again saved the day!) Do I know how to fly even the least sophisticated airplane? Absolutely not. Hell, I can't even fly a kite. But you see, that's how I know I have control issues. Because if I am in a small plane, I'm okay. Whereas, if I am a passenger on a large jet, where I can not even SEE the pilot, much less SMACK them if they begin to screw up, I am seriously a mess. So, I don't know how to fix my control issue, but it's pretty bad and getting worse. The other day, my girlfriend was driving us to a restaurant for lunch and she took a wrong turn. It was all I could do to stop myself from smacking her 'upside the head'.