Sketchblog:Â DayBooks
In a little while I’ll be leaving for the airport, about to begin the almost 24 hour trip to Buenos Aires we’ve been making every summer. As much as I like Buenos Aires, I dread the claustrophobic ordeal of getting there: the cramped seats in coach most of all. Being scrunched into such a compressed seated posture for so many hours makes me lose touch with my skeleton, my mind as well.
In particular, I begin to doubt the continued existence of my legs, below the knee. Occasionally I feel for my tibia, just to make sure it’s still there. And I wriggle my toes for all they’re worth. (I hear stories of people massaging their soles on balls, but they must be traveling business class — there is simply not enough room for that in the seating I encounter.)
Airplanes seem to get smaller every year, the aisles narrower. You can’t wander up and down the aisles much anymore, there’s barely room to travel sideways.
I used to wonder at how so many people seem to be able to sleep their way through the experience — then I was told: sleeping pills. Aha!
Anyway, of all the experiences one pays big money for flying is surely one of the most unpleasant, excluding of course such events as major surgery.