Heights make me uncomfortable.
Being trapped somewhere with the feeling that I can’t just leave whenever I want to really bugs me.
I can’t stand flying for this very reason. It’s not the idea of inevitable death, in a hideously frightening, drawn out plane crash with men, women and children screaming and howling in terror that scares me. It’s the idea that I might suddenly find that I desperately want to get off of the plane and will have to continue to sit there in my seat for hours, without dying of anxiety that is troubling. I try to comfort myself with the hope that the worst possible thing that could happen if I did, is that I would work myself into such panic I’d stop breathing. Realistically, if I were to pass out, this would probably relax me I enough to reestablish a regular enough oxygen flow to revive me. I’m sure I would wake up feeling pretty embarrassed, but chances are I’d be a little calmer too. If I totally lose my mind, and start running up and down the isles of the plane like a raving maniac, I’m pretty much guaranteed not to make it far before being tackled by a flight attendant and injected with a sedative. I know all of this, I’ve lived it all out in my head many times, and I have flown for real many times also (usually under the influence of several gin and tonics) but the idea of it still freaks me out.
It wasn’t until the doors were closed and the elevator had begun to ascend, that I noticed there was only one button, the 52nd floor button. As I’m sure you can imagine, I wasn’t very comfortable with this, and the very thought alone that I couldn’t get out made me want to desperately. Fortunately the boy I was trapped with was cute and more than mildly amusing.
The glass walls, chrome, mirrors and marble floors gave the bar this cold kind of futuristic high-tech doctor’s office vibe. We sat at a tiny uncomfortable table, in tiny uncomfortable chairs. Drinks were ordered, and the labored conversation began. It was 5:00, the only thing in my stomach was about 12 cups of coffee and half a doughnut, and I was exhausted from the 6-hour drive, so I would have been just as happy to sit there in silence, staring out the window, but the idle chitchat stuttered along as I began to what if . What if I popped out of my chair and went running head first into that plate glass? Would I have enough momentum to fly over the terrace? Fifty-two stories, that’s high. If the window slowed me down, and I just fell on the landing, would I be unconscious, or would I have enough energy to walk over to the edge and jump?
“How come you’re drinking so slow?”
“What? Oh.. I haven’t eaten all day.” Would everyone rush out after me and keep me from jumping? That would be so embarrassing. I managed to hold up my end of the conversation, but I wasn’t really listening.
Did he just ask me if I though he had full eyelashes?
What if I just started crying and lay down on then floor, then what would people do? The bar tender was clearly too caught up working the suit that just walked up to the bar, he probably wouldn’t even notice.
“Really? You wouldn’t have an abortion?” He asked.
Dear God, How did we get here? Did I start this one or did he?
“No, I probably wouldn’t have an abortion.”
“What if the father of the baby was a total retard, and you knew the baby would be too? then would you still keep it?”
Do I actually sleep with men who talk like this?
“I’m not in the habit of having sex with retards.” I lie,
“but if I slept with a guy who pretended to be a retard just because he is a jerk and doesn’t want to be held accountable for his own actions, I just wouldn’t tell him I was pregnant. I’d run away to Greece and live happily ever after; eating figs olives and octopus, rolling around blissfully on the beach all day and all night.” There, that should reassure him. Did I just use the word retard? Twice?
“ Right, as if I wouldn’t find out! You’d be there and I’d be all, gee Jen what’s that hanging off your tit? Oh! a baby!!”
Does he go to Greece often? As a child, I read about Corfu in Gerald Durrell’s novel, My Family and Other Animals, and have dreamed of living there ever since.
“ Why would you care?” I asked, accessing a vague memory of where this conversation had started. “ You told me that you would never want kids.” That’s right, he was saying he’d never have kids, something about a ball and chain, and financial restrictions or something…
“ Yeah, but I’d still want to know, so I could do the right thing.”
“ What would you do exactly?”
“I’d be there”.
“How would you be there? We don’t even live in the same city, would you send a check once in a while and drop by to look at your kid for and hour or two whenever you pass through town?
“I’d be there for the birth.”
Is he completely out of his mind?
“Be there for the birth? That’s awfully presumptuous of you. What makes you think I would even want you there for the birth? Why would you want to watch the birth of a child that you don’t even want?”
“I’m sure Jen, once I saw the baby it would be different.”
Oh cute he has a fantasy Island too. I guess we have more in common than I thought.
Well, he does have a point. After all, we all know that as soon as a father sees his baby, he falls so instantly in love, even the incessant squalling of a newborn, the piles of stinking diapers, the mattress soaked in sour breast milk, the spit up, the postpartum what-did-I-just-do’s and the 12 ton ball and chain that comes with it all, couldn’t scare him away; In fact, it makes the bond all that much greater really. I find this to be especially true of self-important, image obsessed narcissistic touring musicians. My present situation and 3 children illustrate that theory nicely. “I’m sorry, why are we having this conversation?”
“You could be pregnant right now for all we know, I just want to…”
“ Hypothetically speaking, if I told you that I was pregnant, what would you do?”
“I’d totally marry you dude and we would have like, nine more kids and stuff.”
Oh sweet and merciful Goddess, as much as I honor the privilege of bearing the resplendent fruit of life from within my womb, Please don’t let me be pregnant, I beg of you.
