You’ve probably heard someone say flying is the safest way to travel. But it is it? According to this CBC news article, “passengers boarding a plane have a 99.99 per cent chance of surviving the flight.” Pretty safe, indeed, yet, do you still get scared? Does it depend on the plane? The weather? The flight?
The smaller the plane the more frightened I get. Recently I was on a plane that had to turn around mid-flight due to a mechanical issue. It had never happened to me before, and of course I reacted like any rational well travelled person would react – I instantly thought we were going to crash and burn and that I should have at least cleaned my apartment and written a will before the trip.
After my mind wandered to thinking of which friends would be fighting over my Kitchen Aid mixer, I decided if we were going down (which we weren’t) it would be best to pick a song to be the soundtrack. What happens next can only be explained due to sleep deprivation and irrational fear. I started to listen to songs that I thought no God/the universe/Yoda would let me die to. In fact, I didn’t even know I had Ginuwine’s “Pony” on my iPod! And if that isn’t the song to help trick the universe into letting you survive, I don’t know what is.
After completely distracting myself with the dirtier equivalent of Dance Mix ’93, it became apparent that it was going to be okay, but my overreacting led to the hunt for the last song to listen to before landing, you know, just in case. As the plane’s wheels gently touched the runway I was humming Holy F***’s “Lovely Allen.”
What song would you pick?
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