In which I learn that I am a crazy person.

I have massive reservations about publishing this post. BUT. I think it is important to address. Maybe someone will read this and think I'm some lunatic fear-spreading monster, but what I want to do here is, actually, the opposite.

I freaked myself out today on an airplane. Because I am a crazy person.

I didn't freak myself out because the ride was very choppy and turbulence makes me bust out in a cold sweat. I didn't freak out because the weather was super foggy going up. I didn't freak out because I was forced to watch Cash Cab.

I freaked out because...well. It started with the rocking and mumbling...

We boarded on time in New York, and it was a full flight. No surprises there. I had the window seat (unexpected benefit of traveling as a single girl! No more giving up the window seat!) and as the rest of the folks boarded, a very sweaty and nervous looking man sat down in the middle set next to me, held out his boarding pass, pointed to the number and said, "Yes?" in what my early morning brain decided to classify as "some kind" of accent from "somewhere" like Pakistan.

I confirmed that he was in the right place, and he nodded. Then he put his head into his hands and rocked and mumbled for the first 30 minutes we were in the air. The man in the aisle seat in our row asked him at one point if he was okay. He nodded and batted the man away from him.

When I went into my purse a little while later, I pulled out my advil and offered him the bottle. He looked at me, but did not acknowledge my offer. No big deal. But when our eyes met, something happened to my brain stem. It TOOK OVER. It was like some totally insane part of me woke up and said, "I am afraid of this guy." I imagine the conversation between the parts of my brain went something like this...

STEM: GUYS!! GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS!

LOGIC: Jesus, Stem. What's wrong?

COMPASSION: Take a deep breath stem!

STEM: DID YOU SEE THAT GUY'S EYES! GUYS! THIS GUY IS NOT RIGHT! LETS JUMP OUT THE WINDOW!

LOGIC: Stem. We're cruising, albeit in rather choppy air, at 36,000 feet. Clearly we can't jump out the window.

COMPASSION: It's fine, Stem. I bet this guy just doesn't like to fly. I imagine we look pretty cra..

STEM: SHUT UP! I'M TAKING OVER. IF YOU DON'T THINK THIS IS SERIOUS THEN I AM SHUTTING YOU DOWN. MANUAL OVERRIDE, BITCHES!

LOGIC/COMPASSION: (in slow motion, as if melting)Nooooooooooooooooo....

And it was on. The brain stem. The part of me that has seen one too many episodes of one too many crime shows. The part of me that is only interested in survival. The part of me that freely engages in completely unacceptable racial profiling.

And apparently, turbulence makes it WAY worse...

If the brain stem had published its notes from the following five minutes, they probably would have looked like this.


SSSSSSHHHHHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTT. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. THIS GUY. THIS GUY IS NOT FROM AMERICA. THIS GUY HAS "SOME KIND" OF ACCENT. SHIT SHIT SHIT. THIS GUY KEEPS LOOKING AROUND THE PLANE WITH HIS CRAZY EYES. WHY SO SWEATY? WHY SO NERVOUS? THIS GUY SMELLS DIFFERENT THAN I DO. ARE HIS CLOTHES NEW? IS HE WEARING A COSTUME TO BLEND IN? WHY ARE HIS SHOE LACES SO WHITE? SHIT SHIT SHIT. THIS GUY...THIS GUY IS CHECKING HIS WATCH ALL THE TIME...WAIT...SHIT! SHIT! RED ALERT!!!!

Red alert because then, in the choppy, floppy, crazytown airspace, he pulled out his cell phone and turned it on.

STEM: CELL PHONE BOMB. HE'S GOING TO BLOW UP THE PLANE. OBVIOUSLY.

I sat there for a minute and looked at his phone out of the corner of my eye...was it in airplane mode...IT WAS NOT! Was he paging down to his "preferred numbers"? YES!

STEM: OF COURSE. THE NUMBER IS PRE PROGRAMMED BEFOREHAND SO ALL HE HAS TO DO IS HIT SEND. WE SAW THIS ON CSI OR BONES OR DATELINE OR FOX NEWS OR MYTHBUSTERS OR SOME SHIT HE IS CLEARLY GOING TO BLOW UP THE PLANE AND I HAVE TO SAVE EVERYONE.

The man had indeed pulled up a number and had his thumb poised on the green "call" key. If logic was there, it probably would have said this:

LOGIC: You know what. I bet he's not a frequent flier. I bet he didn't quite understand the whole off versus airplane mode announcement. He's probably looking to make sure he has the number of the person who is meeting him at the airport. Also, stop being insane.

Compassion probably would have said this:

COMPASSION: Poor guy. I bet he's super bored. He doesn't have anything with him to read or do. And to have a headache too. Ick. Also, we're acting a little silly, yes?

But as we previously established, those two were unavailable for comment. So my Rambo-Brain-Stem continues to run the show...

STEM: OKAY. WE HAVE TO FIX THIS WE HAVE TO GET HIM TO NOT BLOW UP THE PLANE. HOLY. FUCK. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING. WHAT DO I DO? I CAN'T HIT THE CALL BUTTON BECAUSE HIS FINGER IS ON THE KEY! THE SEND KEY! GOD DAMN IT! I HATE FLYING. HOW DO I SAVE EVERYONE? FORGET EVERYONE, HOW DO I SAVE ME? OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. OKAY. CALM DOWN. LETS TALK TO THE GUY. LETS JUST TALK TO HIM. SHOW HIM THAT I AM A REAL PERSON WHO WILL NOT BE EXPLODED TODAY THEN MAYBE I CAN MAKE HIM TURN THE PHONE OFF...

So, in some kind of conversation bravado, I decide to start talking to this man. Really, I start monologing at this man. About Chicago. About family. About New York. About the sky. About the lake (which we were crossing). About headaches. About my cat. I showed the man 97 pictures of my cat on my iPhone.

STEM: NICE PEOPLE WHO HAVE CATS ARE ON THIS PLANE!!!

Finally. I couldn't take it anymore. I looked out the window, took a deep breath hoping that I would not end up on the 5pm news, turned back around and said,

Laura: "You can't have that cell phone on. You have to turn it all the way off."

Guy: "Off off?"

Laura: "Off off off. All the way. Just, shut it off. They don't like it when people have phones on."

Guy: "Okay. Thank you. (pause) My uncle lives in New York. I like it. Big city."

LOGIC/COMPASSION come busting in my brain-basement like the swat team and wrassle the brain stem back into the breathing and blinking stabilization cage.

STEM: HE'S STILL HOLDING THE PHONE!!!! WE COULD STILL BLOW--

COMPASSION: Okay. Enough. Enough. This is beyond insulting to this poor man.

It was insulting. It was insulting to him. It was insulting to my own intelligence. I'm sure THAT guy was sitting there wondering who let this insane woman with all the cat pictures have so much coffee before she flies back to her treatment center on a ranch somewhere.

Clearly we landed without incident. Turns out he had a connecting flight to South Bend and I helped him figure out his next gate since it was clear that he didn't really trust what he was reading on the departures board. He waved at me when we parted ways. I waved back.

I have never felt like such a dick in my whole life. I immediately confessed myself to my Dad, who was kind enough to pick me up, to my Mom, my sister, and three of my co-workers. I felt like Liz Lemon in the episode of 30 Rock where she turns her neighbor in to Homeland Security because he's acting "suspicious" when he's actually just making an audition tape for the Amazing Race.

I laughed at that situation when I saw it on TV because I assumed I was better than that. I live in a big city. I have so many amazing friends and colleagues from every corner of our incredible planet. Truth is though, I was just like she was in that moment. Warped. Freaked out. Goaded into thinking the absolute worst because it seems like the "normal" thing to do. I literally gave myself hives. HIVES!

I am a crazy person, sometimes. I do not like this.

Startling and terrifying to learn, yes. But, I think it is better to learn that I still have those pieces of me than to go on pretending as if I don't. Cliche to say that knowledge is power, but my hope in writing this is that to acknowledge is power. The power to start to change.