It ranks up there with snowmobiling. Logically and intellectually, I have faith in the physics that make air travel possible—it’s science, after all—but on a more primitive, base level, I don’t know how it’s possible. How is my body, plus the bodies of so many other people and thousands of pounds of luggage, encased in a 45-ton hunk of metal, suspended 35,000 feet in the air? Not even suspended. Moving. At more than 500 miles per hour. A sane person can’t believe that’s possible. It makes as much sense as believing in time travel. I’m holding it together, though. I’ve been told all the statistics about flying being safer than driving so many times that I can recite them, too. I do, actually. In my head. Unfortunately, they’re not all that comforting, and they merely highlight the improbability of my ever living to see age forty, but they manage to distract me from my surroundings. Plus, I’m downright chill compared to Betty. She’s done everything short of breathe into her barf bag during this flight.
