On occasion, particularly when I travel, I carry a small notebook with me. I use it to write things down about people I see, things I experience, and things that I want to remember. Since I normally travel alone it can entertain me because usually what I write down are things that I find amusing. Other times I write because I have no one to talk to so I get out my thoughts on paper somewhat therapeutically. Here are a few things that I wrote down regarding my trip from Austin to Fresno:

When the pilot announced that there was another place at our gate and we would be sitting for at least 10 minutes I immediately began to squirm. Somehow I could easily sit for the 2 hour flight rather pleasantly, however sitting in the plane while it was on the ground for a miniscule 10 minutes was almost more than I can handle. The panic radiated from my chest, down my arms and legs like pumping blood and I started getting hot.

I suddenly noticed all of the people around me. Not that I hadn't realized they were there, but they were peripheral before and now it was as if they were closing in on me, snatching my personal space from me. I imagined myself flailing and pushing my way out of the cabin of the plane for some open, fresh air but didn't feel like following that up with getting arrested and having my body cavities probed. Don't get me wrong, sometimes all a girl needs is a good probing but in this situation it wasn't at all appealing.

Nine minutes have gone by. Fuck, they better get this plane moving, I really don't want to freak out in front of all of these people. The voice of the captain breaks through my convoluted and somewhat psychotic thoughts and says "Folks, looks like we have about 5 more minutes, there is still a plane at our gate". I exhaled deeply. Why is there a plane at our gate and why do captains always call passengers folks anyway? Why not "ladies and gentlemen" or "party people" or "you's guys"? Obviously the stress of sitting here is making me super bitch, but the only thing that is making me feel better is to get annoyed at everything so I continued to be annoyed.

Seven minutes later and I am almost going into Lamaze breathing, or tattoo breathing really since I have experience with the later and not the former, and the plane lurches forward. Oh thank god, I think am going to make it.

What I had been able to ignore since I had my Ipod on most of the flight was the group of older women behind me. They were apparently traveling to Hawaii since they all had lays on (either that or they just had really poor taste in jewelry) and one of them had a really thick southern Texas accent. Naturally, she was the one who talked incessantly. To be fair, at this point a puppy would have probably irritated me, but since there were no puppies on this flight my irritation was focused on this woman.

During take off and landing she verbally identified everything that she saw through her small plane window. "I think those are farms down there, those squares must be farmland" or "Oh look, there is another plane over there, I wonder where they are going" or "mountains aren't as tall from up here". These are things that people might think but don’t feel the need to say aloud, at least not me and I have a tendency to be annoyed in certain situations when people don’t think and act like I do.

As we were taxiing to the gate her voice drowned out all others,

"The other night I was watchin this hidden camera show and what a hoot that was!" I imagined she slapped her leg when she said this but I couldn’t see to know for sure. "The things people do when they don’t think anyone is watching, I'll tell you. I mean god is always watching so you should always be on your best behavior, serves them right that they got caught".

This made me visibly cringe. I thought about making eye contact with the girl next to me, she was about 17 and had her yearbook out most of the flight, but it would have been risky. If she didn't look like she to may agree that god was indeed always watching, I might have looked at her, and rolled my eyes. If she sided with the god woman though, I would have been stuck sitting next to someone who thought me to be a judgmental bitch and as true as that may be, I wasn't comfortable with this stranger thinking that. So I kept my eyes looking out the window at the airport terminal I so desperately wanted to be in.

"We need to stop by Big Lots when we get there" the woman continued running her mouth, "I need to get some underwear and some more pillas". She laughed loudly when she said this as if it were an inside joke and I wanted to turn to tell her the correct pronunciation was "pillow" not "pilla" but it would have sounded snotty. Again I kept my eyes out the winda err window and dreamed of the pilot coming back on the radio and saying "Hey you's guys, it is against FAA policy for people to talk loudly about their underwear especially if they are old and unattractive. Please report this behavior to the flight attendant and please refrain from smoking until you get to the designated smoking areas". This of course didn’t happen but as I was thinking about it I am sure it distracted me from hearing more from her.

When we finally arrived at our gate and debarked I felt relieved to have made it without making a disturbance that would land me on Foxnews. Disaster averted, next time I am taking xanax with me.