I am one of those people who suffers from an acute, yet ephemeral, fear of flying, which washes over me the precise moment I feel the plane’s wheels lift off the tarmac. “What type of idiot risks her life in a metal box flying 30,000 feet above the ground?,” I think to myself as I look around the cabin, seeking comfort in the seemingly calm faces of the imputed idiots around me. I forget about this fear right around the moment the plane completes its ascent, only to be suffused with it yet again when the pilot announces he is ready to steer the flying metal box back down to Earth.
