The first mildly scary incident was the flight from Timmins to Toronto on a dash 8. I hadn’t been on one of these gems since I was a kid and for some reason it didn’t scare me at all back then.

Take off was good and everything but once we got over Toronto there was quite a bit of turbulence and we ended up circling the air port a bunch of times before the dash 8 style landing of 80 foot swoops. I had forgotten about what it was like to land in one of these things. Its reall annerving. You cruise along for a bit, then dive… cruise along, then dive. Theres really no getting comfortable. Although it goes against my strong beliefs that the heavier it is the less high up it should be, this experience didn’t have me too shaken up.

The next was the flight from Calgary back to Toronto on a 737. Theres something about the affordability of WestJet that makes me nervous to begin with, but when the seatbelt light flicked on and off several times within 45 minutes I really got uptight. To top it off the stewardess came by at one point and looked like she had been crying. This was the real kicker for me as one of my things I do when I get nervous on plains is glance at the flight attentand to see if shes really forcing a fake smile. I really think this is an important point: If the flight attendant looks like shes being crying, its okay to panic now.

I know theres always some know-it-all who has to pipe in during these type of stories with the old “its the safest way to travel”. Now I honestly don’t take much comfort in the fact that theres less airplane crashes than any other vehicle.
It seems to me, theres a lot of varying levels of seriousness to an automotive crash. You have your fender-benders, rear-enders and whatnot. People walking away from car crashes with injuries ranging from whiplash to total paralasys. But theres really only one level of seriousness to a plane crash now isn’t there? ‘In the unlikely event that the cabin should lose pressure’ means theres about a billion worse things that could happen should lady luck choose to piss on you during your flight.

The third chiller was on the drive down to Sudbury to see my brother and sister and their kids (no they did not have kids together you bunch of sickies). We were cruising down the highway doing at least a buck ten, when suddenly we realize we were following the footsteps of a motherfucker of a moose who was most likely incapable of matching our speed. I was going on about guitars or something to that nature when Janie suddenly goes “oh my god” and I hear our breaks screeching. I look up and I’m staring at the business end of an impressively large moose. A treat for the eyes in most cases, but not when you’re in a speeding vehicle on a similar course. So he steered around it and we continued on our way. I bet that moose is still talking about us.

The last but most definately not least incident happened on the same highway a few nights later. We were on our way home so Janie and I could waddle off to our third and second last helping of yet another traditional Christmas meal when the weatherman decided it would be a white Christmas after all. The storm wasn’t actually all that bad and we were able to maintain a reasonable speed. But at one point we passed someone driving rediculously slow and were wondering why. We soon found out.

There was suddenly nothing but the night sky and whiteness in front of us. We couldn’t see anything. We thought we were going into a blizzard or something. Then we can dimly see headlights in the oncoming lane. And as they great brighter they begin to illuminate a figure in front of us. A giant rectangle no less than 8 feet in front of us. I saw myslef dying right there. But we managed to slow in time. It was a frikken transport with no tail lights.

I was immediatly pissed off at the driver, but my anger turned to fear for my life when my stepdad decided we should pass the guy, only to realize about halfway up that the massive cloud of powder snow it carried in its wake was in fact blinding us not just from the rear, but for about 15 feet on either side. We were driving with a bedsheet over our windsheild. And attempting to match the speed of the transport in front of us? And whatever it is thats in front of it? “This isn’t right.” I think to myself. “We are speeding down the wrong lane and we can’t see. Thats not what you’re supposed to do in a car.”

Panic sets in. I’m screaming obscenities at everyone in the car. My mom is telling us to close our eyes. I’m arguing with my stepdad. Total anarchy. Then we realize the transport is carrying two trailers and we can’t see if theres vehicles in front of it and we back off. Much to my delight.

So other than all the almost dying it was a pretty rocking Christmas Holiday for me.