Happy September, readers! The back-to-school vibes are strong here at Casa Morales-Groh after a truly delightful week in the Florida Keys. If I had to make a recommendation to any of you, I’d say definitely acquire some parents who want to retire in the Keys. It’s absolutely worth it. Especially if they vote Democrat.
The trip marked Danny's and my two-year anniversary and went through several iterations over the last several months. When vibes (and bank accounts) were high, we settled on celebrating our anniversary in Mexico. Then, about a month into the writer’s strike, we decided Puerto Rico was a better alternative. Then, as the strike hit day 100, we decided my parents’ place in Key Largo was more than sufficient, and we tacked on a day trip to Key West for good measure. Not a bad plan C, in my opinion.
Have I mentioned my parents have private beach access?
There is honestly not a huge amount to report from the trip other than that Danny and I are in a much better place than we were a year ago, my parents are happily engaged in their favorite activity (interior design), and I was absolutely delighted by the Key West butterfly garden. We also narrowly avoided a hurricane, but that’s Florida for ya. As delightfully uneventful and restorative as our little anniversary trip was, the return home turned out to be anything but…
And that, dear readers, is what I want to tell you about today.
As many of you may know from the standup joke I keep posting on Instagram, I am a person who suffers from flight anxiety. I’m not sure exactly when this started as I’ve been flying since I was a baby and it never used to bother me, but at some point in my adulthood, I realized the true lack of control I have over the giant tube hurtling me through the sky and boom - fear of flying unlocked. Not only do I not know how to fly a plane, I also fundamentally do not understand how a plane works. I have Googled it many, many times, but the explanation never takes hold. My eyes simply glaze over and my brain refuses to accept the information - kind of like any time I was forced to try and learn math.
With the help of pharmaceuticals, I am now able to fly without feeling like I am going to faint the entire time, but before clonazepam came into my life (shout out Dr. Zornberg!), a good portion of every flight was spent white-knuckling the armrest, silently wishing the person in the window seat* would close the fucking shade because looking out the window gives me vertigo. Seriously. Vertigo.
In my joke that I keep posting on Instagram, I talk about how whenever I tell people I have flight anxiety they always respond by telling me the worst thing that has ever happened to them on a plane. As such, I have developed a catalog of terrifying experiences, from the in-law whose plane almost landed on another plane, to the friend who had to watch a fellow passenger get tackled by an air marshal at 30,000 feet because they got up and tried to open the door. So even though I’ve never actually experienced a flight in which something went wrong, I’ve always had this nagging voice in the back of my head when I board that this flight will be the one where something terrible happens. And reader, last Thursday my fear came true.
[CONTENT WARNING: DESCRIPTION OF SOMETHING SCARY HAPPENING ON AN AIRPLANE — READ AT YOUR OWN RISK]
The flight had been pretty peaceful for a Spirit Airlines flight that crossed paths with a hurricane, and I was feeling relatively okay as we began our descent into La Guardia airport. I say “relatively okay” because, despite my best efforts to avoid all negative plane-related news, I had recently stumbled upon multiple articles describing an uptick in “near misses” on the tarmac and how a “major disaster” is imminent, which I could not get out of my mind. Generally, my anxiety starts to dissipate the moment that I can actually see the ground, but as Queens grew closer my anxiety grew more acute and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining every disaster that could potentially befall flight 3154.
And then it happened.
Just as our wheels were about to touch the ground, our flight suddenly shot off into the sky again. Images of tarmac close-calls flooded my brain and the vertigo kicked in full force as I watched Queens fade further and further away in the window. Suddenly, we were in the clouds again, and as much as Danny was saying, “It’s fine, it’s fine,” the color that had drained out of his face told me he was pretty fucking freaked out too. Nobody else on the plane was saying anything. In fact, a brief glance at my fellow passengers showed me a sea of serene faces, totally nonplussed by our aborted landing. One lady behind me was even smiling. Smiling! In the face of imminent death! Did she not know about the tarmac disasters? Should I tell her?
As we ascended, the New York skyline came into view once more and my ancient millennial trauma reared its ugly head. Suddenly, I became convinced that the pilot - who had not said anything at this point - was doing a 9/11 on us. The smiling woman was definitely in on it, and maybe my husband was too. Why did I ever think I could trust that guy?
After what felt like an eternity but was probably three minutes, the pilot came over the loudspeaker to tell us that he’d had to abort our landing because of an “unsteady approach” but that there was “nothing wrong with the aircraft” and we’d be “on the ground soon.”
Hah! I thought. That’s exactly what the 9/11 hijackers said - probably!**
Side note to any pilots who may be reading this right now: telling passengers there is “nothing wrong with the aircraft” is one way to guarantee that they will think there is something wrong with the aircraft. Just FYI.
I spent the next 7-12 hours (aka roughly ten minutes) doing the only thing that I could think to do, which was pull out my prayer beads and recite the Maha-mantra*** to myself. If the people around me weren’t going to be naturally as freaked out as I was, I would get them there via my own unsettling behavior.
As you’ve probably guessed by the fact that I am writing this right now, the plane did eventually land and we were all let off as though nothing had happened. It was only once my fellow passengers were safely deplaned and at baggage claim that we all started discussing what had happened. Turns out everyone - including my husband - was just as freaked out as me, they were just handling it better. Rude - and frankly nasty - behavior on their part.
Once Danny and I got home we both began the ancient cleansing ritual of frantically Googling what happened to us and screaming what we found at each other. Some results confirmed my fears about a near-missed tarmac disaster, some confirmed the pilot’s “unsteady approach” narrative (but why would I believe him?). My friend’s brother who is a pilot**** came down somewhere in the middle, saying there were probably just too many planes on the tarmac for us to land.
Personally, I’m not not still convinced that we narrowly avoided 9/11 (Biden’s Version).
See you in the skies,
XOXO
besitos
Alise
***important notes***
* I have to sit in the aisle because my giant husband has to sit in the aisle and I need to be directly across from him so that we can hold hands if there’s turbulence. The middle seat is not an option because I have self-respect.
** This is not what the 9/11 hijackers said.
*** Hare Krishna/ Hare Krishna /Krishna Krishna / Hare Hare / Hare Rama / Hare Rama / Rama Rama / Hare Hare - yeah, I’m one of those.
**** It is imperative that everyone have at least one friend whose brother is a pilot.
***promos and plugs***
If you’re around the Brooklyn area tonight you can catch me on this show at 8:30pm at The Graham in Williamsburg.
I did the very fun Stein Time podcast this week where I talked all about just like, my life and shit. Check it out here!