Up, Up.

So, I'm not an experienced or especially tough traveler. As a child, my whole giant family would pile into the van and drive through scenic Ohio to Hubbard Lake, Michigan, then up through Canada and down into Massachusetts, to Marblehead, where my father's family lived. I haven't been on a trip like that in over five years, so my road trip endurance has become pretty low. In college I could sort of handle five-hour trips to Washington, D.C. for quiz bowl tournaments, but only just. By the fifth hour, I'd be sniffing myself and wondering just how fast we'd have to drive to careen off of the Beltway into one of the dense swaths of McMansions nearby, crushing someone's zinnias and nicking their Land Rover until we end up spinning upside down in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

I've only flown twice in my life: once when I was five for my aunt's wedding, and once last year when I visited New York for the first time*. I'd like to say that I don't fly because I'm neurotic and terrified, but that's only half-true. Heights and speed both terrify me in one way or another, and planes do combine both of those things (really, because of the passenger's frame of reference, one does not perceive the speed of the plane, but I know how fast these planes go), but I can get over that. The real reason I've only flown twice in my life is because I never go anywhere. I hardly leave home, for one reason or another. And now, when I go into an airport, I feel like I've just hitched up my overalls and gotten a fresh stem of wheat to chew on that coordinates just wonderfully with my new straw hat. I feel like this in Express for Men, too, but that's another issue.

So, Becky and I are flying to Arkansas** tomorrow and this is what I'm afraid is going to happen:

1. We will show up late, and will see the plane flying overhead, mocking us. Because we are late, we will miss her grandmother's 80th birthday party, and she will be disowned.

2. The tickets will have been booked incorrectly. I will end up embarrassed.

3. My deodorant has marijuana in it. A drug-sniffing dog catches this and bites my armpit off.




*I'm not a cosmopolitan guy.
**Well, Memphis, from where we will drive to Arkansas.