I SHOULD BE DESERVING TO BE TO MARS

I was six years old when I flew for the first time. Having never been on an airplane before, I was totally enthralled with the entire process. The tickets, the luggage, the take off and the landing. I even ate the inflight meal. I didn't know any better. And that is the only flight I remember enjoying. Every flight since has been nothing short of a total nightmare. Like my flight to Johannesburg. I sat next to the bathroom. For 18 hours. Then my flight back from Johannesburg. I sat next to a man who had probably never showered. The flight attendent yelled at me for wanting a diet coke in the morning. She said I might as well be a drunk.   Then our honeymoon flight to KeyWest. The tire popped. On the airplane. And it turns out it takes a long time to fix that. It takes an even longer time to get passengers off a blown-tire plane and into a terminal. We of course missed our connecting flight and were forced to spend the night in The Welsley, the nearest hotel to the Atlanta Airport, which at the time was housing a number of traveling high school marching bands and what appeared to be a Viking convention. That's not a joke. Lots of men in antlered hats and burly beards.There was the flight after the New York Marathon, when my legs felt as though they might fall off, and the flight was delayed six hours, and then my poor poor legs were crammed beneath the overly reclined seat in front of me.  Finally, last night's flight was no departure from the pattern. The man sitting in front of me was heavily intoxicated. I haven't smelled that much alcohol since the Latvian bus. My sockless feet were next to the airvent, and lost all sensation about half way through the flight. The man sitting next to me continuously stuck his finger in his ear. The children sitting behind me were competing for loudest burp. And there were mysterious white sprinkles that ended up all over my bag and all over my clothes. I can only pray it was not dandruff from another human's head.