The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Time: 5:31am
Temperature: -56°C
Ground speed: 643.74km/h
Location: 36,000ft above Greenland

1 of 9 hours:
The excitement begins! Going to live in a little village in France for eight months!  Can’t wait to finally see the village for myself, instead of just stalking through it on Google Earth!
First thing on the agenda will be to find that stop-light I’ve been reading about on The Village  website. Not that there’s anything special about the stop-light, except the fact that it is the only stop-light in the entire commune. How cute! Yeah, I’ll bet it’s a really cute stop light. Wearing a little beret or something French like that. Yippie!

1 ½  of 9 hours:
A lady in tight jeans and stilettos just walked by on her way to the bathroom. On every flight there’s always at least one or two people who doll themselves up, for the sole purpose of making us grubby sweat-pant wearers look worse. That’s okay. We’ll see who will be smiling in eight hours.

3 of 9 hours:
I cannot believe they’d show True Blood on television here! What about the children on board? Tuned in right in the middle of ultra violent vampire sex scene, just as lady in black stilettos walked by again. And gave me a judgmental look and everything. As if she had just caught me streaming porn onto one of these teeny televisions. As if that were even possible! As if that wouldn’t completely mess up the airplane signals!

3 ½  of 9 hours:
Extreme boredom. Too lazy to read. Too uncomfortable to sleep. Too groggy to think of anything deeper or more intellectual than my own boredom. Worst part is: also too afraid to turn on teeny television.

3 ¾  of 9 hours:
Never mind, can still sustain intellectual thought: I wonder if the President of France is on this flight?

It’s not as unlikely as one might think. My sister and her boyfriend once shared a first-class compartment with none other than the President of Honduras himself. And the man with whom her boyfriend asked to switch seats turned out to be the Minister of Security. Perhaps a plane-load of Honduran politicians is less likely to be shot down if they are interspersed with civilians. And if Honduras insulates its elite with common folk, why shouldn’t France?  Yes. Of course! Gold. I love these intellectual moments.

On second thought, why would anyone want to shoot down a France-bound plane anyway?

4 of 9 hours:
Plane shaking like mad. The pilot announced that we’re experiencing some turbulence over Iceland. Just remembered that I have an acute fear of flying.

4 ½ of 9 hours:
Plane still shaking like mad. Bloody Iceland. First the volcano, now this turbulence. It’s like they mean to be a poor sport and ruin airspace for all of us. Plus I keep on pondering that civilians-as-insulation theory. Terrifying thoughts running through my mind. Will not dare write them down, for risk of being kicked off plane. Mid-air.

Absolutely must calm down. But how? Will now try to count the clouds outside.

[...]

New thought. I heard somewhere that the airplane bathroom is actually the safest place to be during a crash. Maybe it’s one of those counter-intuitive things like breakfast being good for you. Or maybe I’m just being silly?

Yes, absolutely silly.

5 ½  of 9 hours:
Just returned from seventh trip to the bathroom. How lovely – dinner is being served. (Food always takes my mind off fear of flying/death).

The flight attendant handed us trays with neat little pre-packaged meals. My elderly seat neighbour gave her package (and its wrinkly contents) a look of complete disgust, as if it had just offended her in some way. She turned to me, probably expecting me to stand up to those chicken strips and force to put on a prettier face. But all I said was that the packages looked much like the microwaveable meals some of my ex-housemates used to live on – and as far as I knew, they all survived the year. This didn’t seem to cheer her up though.

6 of 9 hours:
Why, oh why, is True Blood still on???

8 ¾ of 9 hours:
More turbulence. Pilot seems to think that now is good time to land.

Was it takeoff or landing that was the most dangerous part of a flight? Rats. Fear of flying resumes. I’d meditate, if it weren’t for this turbulence and this inner panic.

Terrifying thoughts running through my mind again. If I make it out alive, I vow to become a French citizen and vote for Sarkozy in the next elections. And the ones after that.  (Unless Sarkozy himself doesn’t survive the crash. Gah! Gaaaaaaah!)

9 of 9 hours:

Landing a success. Hurray!

I mean, of course landing was a success. Nothing could have possibly happened, what with the President of France (plus entourage, undoubtedly) on board. How did I ever come to have such silly thoughts? Especially on my way to a cute French village with a beret-wearing stop-light?

Life is jolly. Especially when one is alive.

Signing off,
The Curious Cockroach