When I tell people I am afraid to fly, they often roll their eyes and offer the same insightful quip akin to “Smoking is bad for you.” They tell me I am more likely to die in a car wreck than in an air disaster. And they’re right, statistically.According to Plane Crash Info’s website: “…the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight [is] approximately eight million-to-one. If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would statistically be over 21,000 years before he or she would be killed.”
What I don’t understand is why people are so enraged by my aviophobia. For the record: I do not hate airplanes; I do not hate pilots (my uncle is a Captain for AA; my grandpappy was a crop-duster and my father has a pilot’s license); I do not protest / detest people who do fly, or love to fly. I simply don’t like it. And yes, I know it stems from control issues (the same reason I hate YOU driving); I know it is irrational.
What I’d like to ask of you pro-flying-types is this: Please stop using the flying-is-less-dangerous-than-driving line. First, you are making a claim based on quantitative risk (no time to go into it here). Second, I can’t smoke on an airplane, but I can damn-well smoke in my pickup truck. In conclusion, while your phobia forces you to screech like a fucking pussy every time you see a spider, I am overcoming mine with a handful of Klonopins and a fifth of rye whiskey.
(first photo courtesy of planecrashinfo.com. Second photo courtesy of some redneck from the University of Toronto's personal website.)
Rating: 15%
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22 comments:
Obviously, the size of the image on this post proves I've never blogged before.
I'm not afraid to fly, but I do find it generally uncomfortable and annoying. And I typically hate any space that uses heavily recycled air.
You've evidently never read one either.
Dear John,
Thank you for the post! I have indeed read Glenn's review, but as an alpha-male I felt I could one-up him. Mission fuckin' Accomplished.
Yours in Christ,
V.A.
I think we have to make a new rule that if you are going to do a review of something we have already reviewed, you should at least link to it. And you just have to select small as your picture size when you post. And then it will be smaller.
ps - I like rules.
How about this for a rule: You're never allowed to fuck up on R3, ever. Ever. Ever.
Actually, I quit. I fucking quit.
Peace be upon you,
VA(ginas inas inas)
Wow VA(gina), you were driven to madness really quickly. Remind me never to take a ride in your smokey ass pickup truck.
Okay,
I want back on the team.
You're certainly free to have a giant photo if you really want, but I figured I'd try to help.
Sometimes the resizing feature doesn't work, and you have to steal the photo from its original source, put it on your hard drive, and then upload it back onto blogger. Then it works.
Handful of Klonopin... does that mean you'll be flying soon??
Phobias suck, but they're not insurmountable. This from someone who came very close to having a panic attack after driving down a mellow Katy road for .9 miles and pulling into an HEB parking lot. You can make it happen.
Speaking of control issues, I think we need to send a memo on R3 formatting. Some of the posts get difficult to read at times (in my opinion).
Not that I guess we care about readership. And if no one else cares then just tell me to fuck off.
Great first "official" post VA. And speaking of Christ, you John and I do have good Christian names. Let's start a blog.
What kind of formatting would you like to see, Chris? Bigger text? More paragraph breaks?
yall get memos how come i never got a memo
Hi there Viking Andrew! I don't understand how you can not like flying! Has anyone ever told you that the probability of being killed on a flight is less than smoking or riding a bike or walking?
(or glen getting a job)
Well, sometimes when you (not you specifically) insert a picture the first sentence doesn't line up with the top of the photograph. Instead Blogger pushes the beginning of the post a whole line down (like the "Shameless Self Promotion" post), and that just kind of bothers me.
You know, really trivial things like that.
Part of the problem is that it varies from browser to browser. Like when I post using my mac, and then read the post on my girlfriend's mom's shitty old PC, sometimes it looks horrible. I was worried about that tesseract post for that reason, but since I don't have a PC, I couldn't check.
I fixed "Shameless Self Promotion," but it didn't really clear up that dangling half sentence like I thought it would.
I was drunk as shit when I posted that one.
I hadn't considered the browser and OS would have an impact on how it's viewed. I wasn't pointing you out specifically.
I'm just a little OCD about a few things.
God get a message board c'mon.
Your girlfriend's mom has a shitty PC, too? We should get together and have coffee. We have lots in common.
Keep 'em illiterate and pregnant, that's what I always say.
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