Hey, look! The Concorde!

Klonie JORDAN The pilot's voice boomed over the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll look to the left of our aircraft, you're in for a treat. The Concorde has just taken off and you can get a good look at it as we approach for our landing."

Let me make one thing perfect clear.

I DON'T LIKE TO FLY!

I reckon if the good Lord had wanted us up in the air zippity do-dahing all over the place, he would have given us wings - or at least made our arms more aerodynamic, maybe have put a big skin flap between our elbows and armpits. You know, like a flying squirrel.

The incident to which I refer occurred several years ago when the missus and I flew to Miami to board a cruise ship for the Bahamas.

By the way, it's the same deal for me with water as with flying. If'n the good Lord had wanted us to be out there zooming around on and under the ocean, we'd be breathing through gills, or at least be able to squirt clouds of ink through our noses to help us hide from predators the same way our friend the octopus, or squid, or whichever one of those tentacled creatures can do that.

My wife has no fear of flying and/or sailing. She can get on an airplane or a boat and travel all over the world and not think twice about it. I, on the other hand, detest the notion. I get motion sickness from watching Snoopy fly that doghouse around in the cartoons.

"Why are you so afraid of flying?" she asked me shortly after we met.

"I'm not afraid of flying," I told her. "I'm afraid of crashing."

And while I am a bit less traumatized by watercraft, I still am not entirely comfortable with them. Can't swim, ergo it would be foolhardy of me to place myself in a situation where there might be an incident that would require me to tread water for awhile.

If and when I should ever enter the water in an emergency situation, I would sink like a brick and in my state of panic would drag to the bottom of the briny depths any and all morons who would make the sad and fatal choice of trying to rescue me. I'm not the kind of guy you want to try and save in an aquatic crisis situation.

So it took a great deal of coaxing to get me on that plane. And I was one big giant nervous wreck. From the time that plane's wheels made their first rotation in Charlotte until the time they braked to a full stop at the gate at Miami International, yours truly was a-praying, and a-sweating, and a-weeping like a small child, and a-squeezing the armrests on my seat into hopelessly irreparable hunks of twisted metal.

The whole time we were in the air, my calm, cool and collected wife was pointing out landmarks and making idle chit-chat.

I, on the other hand, was at one point begging a flight attendant to "just tie a rope around the tail of this thing and I'll rappel down it Batman-style."

I imagined all sorts of disastrous events:

- The pilot and co-pilot have simultaneous heart attacks.

- Halley's Comet returns early and smashes through the fuselage.

- A drunk guy stumbles and falls and on his way down he accidentally grabs the handle on the emergency exit door and we all get sucked out of the plane and plummet to our deaths over Jacksonville.

And now, here we were a few thousands feet from our destination and the pilot is suddenly pointing out sights around the airport like he's some kind of tacky Hollywood tour bus guide. This made me even more nervous because I need him paying attention to the runway, not an adjacent aircraft.

By the next day I had finally regained some measure of calm. And then it dawned on me that we would have to fly to get back home.

Which brought to mind a key question:

Wonder what the cab fare is from Miami to Charlotte?

Klonie Jordan (editor@gaffneyledger.com) is executive editor of The Gaffney Ledger.