A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holidays.
I've never missed a plane. I'm one of those people who likes to get to airports ridiculously early and check in and go through Customs as soon as possible. I'm dreadful company if friends or family are dropping me
at the airport then want to have a coffee or a bite to eat before waving me through. All that's running through my head is, "what if the lines at the security screening are long and this meal causes me to miss the plane?" I become anxious and irrational and not particularly fun to be around.
It's strange, because most people's anxieties about planes are attached to the flying aspect. In that regard I count myself lucky: I have zero fear of flying and am almost always asleep before the plane even takes off. But the fear of missing the plane? That is so real that until the boarding call is made and I am safely walking down the air-bridge, I'm a bundle of nerves.
I don't know whether it's a chicken-and-egg situation, but for as long I can remember I've had recurring dreams about missing planes. As a child it was always the same insurmountable obstacle: there was a plane to catch and I'd need the toilet and therefore miss the plane. Sometimes I hadn't even made it to the airport, other times I was at the terminal. And I never made it on board.
Luckily I never wet the bed either, though as I've gotten older the obstacles that stop me from catching the plane in my dreams have started to vary from merely being of the water closet variety. There will be taxis that don't arrive, departure gates that can never be found, non-moving queues to scan bags: the specifics vary but the outcome remains the same: I don't catch the plane.
