Even in terrestrial life, I'm a creature of habit. I eat practically the same thing every day, follow numerous written and unwritten regimens. In addition, nearly everything I do is thoroughly documented, whether it be on twitter, or in my own private journals--I have a constant awareness of what I'm thinking, what I'm doing, and alternate things I could be doing.
Flight only heightens this.
- I always purchase an orange juice before flight. If I'm hungry prior, I eat crappy noodles from the "Chinese" place.
- At the gate, I sit 2-3 places away from the most good-looking person of the opposite sex present. It derives from a rather ridiculous fear that the entirety of humanity will be wiped from existence, save the people on my airplane, that my flight will land in a place isolated from the rest of humanity, or some other scenario that forces the people on my flight to form a new civilization, and thus, repopulate. I do this on the first day of a new class, as well. If I have to help sustain the human race, I'm damn well going to call "dibs". (Luckily, this time, I ended up sitting next to him in-flight. He was a Forestry graduate student with a rad beard (but would have looked way better sans beard) who spun poi. In a post-apocalyptic world, we would have made beautiful, intelligent, quirky children.)
- If I have a window seat (which I prefer), the window is up until we're above the clouds, at which point, the window is down.
- I pointlessly wish to myself, "No small children, no small children, no small children..." while boarding.
- I always drink ginger ale. I actually don't like carbonated drinks. Except for ginger ale. But only on airplanes.
- I go to the bathroom immediately after getting off the plane. Even if I don't actually need to. I'll just go in, wash my hands, and leave.
These are the things that I do when faced with a dense mass of people.
