Learn to Fly

Most days I don't notice just how much the world has changed in the last six years. The aftereffects of 9/11 hasbecome a part of our daily lives and collective history. We are all aware of the changes, but they are not so distressing, especially if you travel often. Stepping out of your shoes, skipping the coffee run on the way to the airport and judging the combined quantity of liquids in your carry-on...it's just what we do now.

As I write this I am on a flight from Dallas to Oakland. I've been planning this trip for months and really looking forward to it for the last week or so. I needed to get away from myself for a while. But sitting here on the airplane, I'm apprehensive and I can't judge if I am overreacting or if I need to be shouting. I think I'm a rational person who tends to look for reasonable explanations for everything. So I will give you my set of circumstances and let you be the judge -- is this normal post-9/11 fear or am I just nuts?

I am sitting near the front of the plane, in the second row of coach in the window seat, with the middle seat empty and a nice older women sitting on the aisle. She mentioned to the flight attendant that she is going to California to visit her daughter and little granddaughter. Normal enough so far, right? Then she asked the flight attendant how many people were in the cockpit and if there were always two people or if sometimes there were three? The flight attendant told her she couldn't discuss security procedures -- Grandma seemed miffed but acquiesced anyway. As soon as the seatbelt light went off she toddled up the restroom in first class (sans shoes) and while the lav in the front is infinitely closer than the one at the back of the plane, it is mere inches from the cockpit and I'm not sure I want her anywhere near it. When she came back she pulled out her cell phone (at you know, 30-something-thousand feet) and tried to make a phone call. Who does that? Is she trying to detonate something she left in the bathroom? Should I say something? Get ready to tackle her if she does anything else suspicious? Or am I completely paranoid?

I'm sure if I was on the ground I would think this was a sweet grandmother who just needed to "go" and didn't want to walk the entire length of the plane, wanted to make sure herself that there was plenty of security up front and as she isn't wearing a watch, was using her cell phone to see what time it was. That is what normal, pre-9/11 me would have thought.

It's really sad and I know it. But just in case, I'm not sleeping the rest of the flight.