ON DOGS HUMPING THE AIR

reflections from a long drive

I was recently on a long car ride with my two youngest children, my daughter aged 15 and my son aged 10, and my two dogs, Hank and Herb. We were driving with a ton of stuff packed into my little Toyota Prius in what turned out to be a 13 hour and 7 minute trip. I had been working in northern Quebec (yeah, I drove there, too, in what turned out to be a fifteen hour mostly overnight drive) and had brought the dogs with me. Afterward, I met up with my husband and two kids who flew in for a little vacation further south. My husband, who always prefers to fly, left a couple days earlier than the rest of us by plane. I drove back with the menagerie, you know, the kids, the very smelly dogs, the bass oboe, a bunch of regular oboes, and a ton of reed tools. Oh, and a lamp.

I hate to fly, and it’s not getting better as I age. On one of the hours of the long drive, we were talking with my husband over the car’s loud speaker and I was complaining about the traffic. “Wouldn’t you rather fly?” he asked like always. No. No, I would not. I mean, I don’t have a huge problem flying. But I never sleep the night before and I envision all the ways the plane can crash. And then, I’m so sleepy on the plane that I finally fall asleep. And I always dream that the plane is crashing, waking up with turbulence. Just as bad is when my family members fly without me. I’d rather be on the plane with them, all exhausted and nervous, kind of like my dog Hank after someone opens a bag of potato chips or touches a plastic water bottle. I also hate getting to the airport early, I hate security, I hate taking oboes through security, I hate being enclosed on the plane, and as I told most of my family in that conversation about how I wouldn’t rather be flying, I hate sitting next to people on planes. They laughed and called me antisocial.