By the time you read this, I will be gone. And I do mean gone. I am on vacation this week for the first time since starting here at the paper.

Since I am not going to be at work, I knew that I would have to write this prior to leaving.

Therefore, I can not tell you what a good time I am having on vacation, because right now I am sitting here at work and typing this column.

I suppose I could have speculated and pretended to know what kind of a time I am having, but that isn't easy to do. I may not have a good time at all. I am taking a plane from here to there and back again. I have an admission to make. I have never been on an airplane before.

There, I said it. I have traveled as far west as Texas and as far south as Florida. I have been all the way from New York to Ohio and back again. But I have never done any of it on a plane.

I have spent all of my traveling time in automobiles. While this might not be a good way to spend one's vacation, it is the only way I know. As I think of it, the calm and rational part of my brain says, "People fly all the time, it is safer than driving."

Then, the not-so-rational part says, "Don't do it. If you were meant to fly you'd have wings."

There is some logic to that, I suppose. If you crash in a car, you might get out. If you are in a ship wreck and you can swim, you have a chance. However, when planes break down, the best you can do is hold on for the ride. I definitely want to know if my pilot is Egyptian, like that guy who dive bombed the ocean with a 747 full of passengers. Prior to that incident, I had heard of terrorists getting on the planes, but never of terrorists being the pilots of planes.

I am not nearly so worried about terrorists as I am about some crazy plane problem.

I can hear it now, "This is your captain speaking. We forgot to bring along enough fuel, so we're going to have to drop all of the luggage and half the passengers, beginning with those whose last name starts with L."

Or maybe the engine just falls off or the landing gear won't work or any number of other things.

For some reason, those movies about monsters on the plane's wing, terrorist attacks, and all kinds of other plane movies have been playing since I decided to fly. I even noticed that the one about the people who turn into cannibals to survive was playing the other night. I think I will just stick with the regular movies until my trip is over. I also got an email that asked, "Why do planes have inflatable life rafts and no parachutes?" That's a good question. I hope I don't need either one.

I think that one of the things that really bothers me is that you can't get off a plane. Once you are up and away, there is no turning back. Not that exiting a boat would be a sensible thing to do, either. But at least you have the appearance of choice. Once you are up in the air, they own you. They can feed you awful food, make you sit next to mean and nasty people and even make you watch really bad movies, or so I have been told.

I just worry about getting there in one piece, with all of my functioning body parts still in place.

Hopefully, by next week I can tell you all about my great adventure and my vacation.

I just keep thinking about my last trip to far-away places. I went to the beach and didn't have anywhere to stay. I ended up spending the night in a lounge chair by the swimming pool because I forgot to call and book a room and everything in town was full. At least I saved the hotel fee for the first night and wasn't arrested, even if I did end up being giggled at all the next day because my back was covered with zebra stripes from the chair's wooden slats.

One thing's for sure, I miss you all and I am not even gone. Well, I guess I am gone now. See you soon.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

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