Someone on one of the message boards asked for advice about air travel for people who are afraid to fly and 90% of those who responded had the same solution - drugs. “Call your doctor and ask for a prescription for ________.” (The most popular seems to be Xanax.)  I had no idea so many people were medicated on their flight to Orlando International Airport.

My drug of choice is a bloody mary, and that is just one part of the ritual/superstition that I have developed to combat my love/hate relationship with flying (love going places, hate having myself hurled through the sky in a thing that does, after all, fall out if it once every so often). If I have my bloody mary, a stack of People Magazines and say the Our Father just before take off I’m pretty OK.

People magazines are great to keep your mind off what’s going on. I subscribe to it but save them until I have a flight somewhere, so sometimes I’m reading pretty old ones, and trying to keep up with Drew Barrymore’s boyfriends and Angelina Jolie’s children is quite engrossing. Usually I’m so busy thinking about letters I would write to the editor about letters to the editor that have annoyed me that I don’t even notice we’ve taken off.

I read somewhere that you should get a seat in the front of the plane because the turbulence is not as bad there, but I don’t know if that is true or not. Worth trying I suppose.

When I am really afraid I always make myself laugh by thinking of “The Simpsons” episode in which Marge is afraid to fly, and she gets on the plane and all you can see is her little blue head running up and down the aisle shouting, “Let me off let me off let me off let me off...”. Sometimes I think that it wouldn’t take a whole lot for that to be me.

Anyway, try the “drinks, People Magazine (“Us” Magazine would work just as well, I suppose), and prayer method” and I guarantee results.