Leaving On A Jet Plane

The area around my hometown of Joplin, Missouri is commonly referred to as The Four States because four states (Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas) are within a 50-mile radius of Joplin. My parents would take my sister and me all around those four states-a dinner at Chicken Annie's in Kansas, to the Beaver Lake in Arkansas and shopping in Oklahoma. The only plane ride I had ever taken until I was in high school was on a little four-seater that we just took up for a little spin around...you guessed it...The Four States. While still in grade school, I started complaining that I had never been out of The Four State area. My parents took the hint and loaded my sister and me up for summer trips to South Dakota, Canada and Colorado. Those road trips were nice, but I yearned for the glamour of flying. I doubt my parents ever thought their shy, sheltered little girl who they tried to keep confined to The Four States would grow up to live in a city halfway across the country that required a plane or two to get her home.

At this point in my life, I've been flying in big planes (planes with more than four seats) to places other than The Four States for over 10 years, and I've lost count of how many flights, connections and delays there have been. I'm no frequent flyer, but I take to the friendly skies several times a year, sometimes to visit friends, occasionally for work, but mostly to get back home, ironically to that Four State area I so desperately wanted to fly away from when I was younger.

The more a person flies, the more stories or mishaps they are going to have. I'm no different. I've encountered most standard flight annoyances (cancelled flights, lost luggage, crying babies) and some rare ones (emergency landing due to a fire on the plane, sitting on the tarmac for over seven hours in the December New York City snow). At the end of an uneventful excursion, I'm always grateful and wonder if I'll be quite so lucky the next time because the more a person flies, the more mishaps they are going to have. I bought my ticket for my flights home for Christmas just a few short hours ago, and as excited as I am to be heading back to my family I cannot help but wonder what trouble I might have while trying to get there. I'll take an aisle seat with a side of uneventful.