I Had My Tray Table Up and My Seat Back in the Full Upright Position

The last time I was on a red eye flight, it was a Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Munich. I wrote an email to my parents (which I later repurposed as a blog post), ate a delicious dinner, and slept.

I wanted to have a similar experience on the flight to New York. I wanted to write a blog post so that I could brag to you, "This blog post was written at tens of thousands of feet in the sky. I bet you've never read a blog post written tens of thousands of feet in the sky before." It also would have been nice to eat a delicious dinner, and to have a relaxing sleep. Alas, it was not to be.

The week that I left, there was quite a bit of work that needed to be done in my place of employment. Instead of being a sensible person and taking my coworkers' offers to finish my work for me when I was gone, I determined to do it ALL before I left town.

I got up early. Each day, I went to my place of employment, did a heap of work, then spent the rest of the day jumping from obligation to obligation--social, familial, religious, and necessary for my trip. Did I mention that I also had a very bad cold? Well, I did, and sometimes I felt feverish and only half-aware of what I was doing. It was not ideal, but I was going to get all the things done, dangit!

The day I left, I went straight from work to finish packing and straight from packing to the airport. I arrived at the airport satisfied that I could leave for New York City with peace of mind but also exhausted, mentally spent, and not quite over the vestiges of my cold.

At the airport, we met up with Glory, a family friend who went to high school with Older Sister and me and the fourth member of our New York City party. We sat around waiting for our red eye flight: Glory talking animatedly to Older Sister about her (Glory’s) boyfriend, Little Sister braiding my hair and doing homework for her online class, and me having my hair braided and watching a Youtube video for the Weird Al song “Albuquerque.” This is a song where, among other things, the protagonist survives an airplane crash by having his tray table up and his seat back in the full upright position. Little Sister and I have referenced this song every time we’ve boarded an airplane for the last five years. We are quite fond of it.

By the time we boarded our flight around 11:00 pm, I was too tired to write anything coherent. I was too tired to eat much, and so all that was left to do was sleep. I put on my complimentary sleep mask and snuggled up against the window.

I slept fitfully for about forty-five minutes, woke, repositioned myself, and went back to sleep. I then slept equally fitfully for another hour and fifteen minutes, only to wake to find Little Sister’s head resting on my shoulder.

“Time to wake up!” my body said.

“What gives, man?” I said to my body. "We’ve barely slept in a week. Please let me sleep. I really want to sleep.”

But you don’t always get what you want.

I looked around inside the dark airplane. Earlier, the flight attendants had walked up and down the aisles, offering drinks and snacks and rapidly turning their heads to see which passengers were going to take them up on these offers. (They seemed to have very flexible necks.) However, at this point they weren’t walking around very much, because most of the passengers were asleep. As they slept, most had their arms folded tight against their bodies. It made them look like a contingent of super grumpy people.

I looked at my iPod. There was actual Wi-Fi inside the flight, sorcery the likes of which I’d never experienced before. I watched a few videos and did some random internet surfing.

I looked straight outside the window. There were bands of gold on a blue horizon as we flew eastward into the dawn.

I looked down outside the window. There was a lot of water and fog below us. “Ah,” I thought. “The…famous New York State marshes?” It wasn’t until later that I realized we were probably over the Great Lakes.

I looked at Little Sister’s legs, which had found their way onto my lap.

I felt quiet inside. I was heading into a city with tons of people and buildings and vehicles all packed into a relatively small space, and it would not be quiet there, but I was quiet inside. I was taking a deep breath before plunging into the unknown.