Yesterday was the first day of my Spring Break, and, as such, it should have been anything but stressful. However, seeing that travel was involved, the odds of something going wrong were high. Add in the fact that I was flying with American Airlines, and all hope of having a stress-free and relaxing day was thrown out the window.

Now, I love American Airlines dearly, mostly because they have a stellar record of keeping me alive. Nevertheless, I am increasingly concerned each time I board one of their airplanes. A few months ago, as I was seated on the plane, preparing to be taken from Dallas to Chicago for Christmas break, the pilot announced nonchalantly that O'Hare was temporarily not allowing any planes to land there, though not for any weather-related reasons. The manner in which he conveyed this information implied that terrible, horrifying things were happening in Chicago. For fifteen minutes, panicked passengers called and sent text messages to loved ones; those without loved ones fidgeted with their cell phones anyway. Finally, the pilot's voice came over the intercom again, but with no useful information. He merely mentioned that the ground block had been lifted and that we would be in the air soon.

When I finally arrived at O'Hare, I was a wee bit shaken and incredibly annoyed. My emotions had been manipulated carelessly by the very man who held my life in his hands for two hours and thirty minutes. He gave me reason to panic and then essentially shrugged it off with a little laugh.

Last night, I was once again on an American Airlines plane, ready to fly from Dallas to Chicago. My flight was supposed to land at 9:15pm, but the boarding hadn't even finished by 9:10pm. The original aircraft had "maintenance issues," so all the passengers were told to wait at a different gate for a different plane, one that would be leaving two hours after our originally-scheduled flight. I appreciate flying on planes without severe maintenance issues, so I didn't complain about the wait.

However, once on board this second airplane, the pilot spoke up to welcome the passengers and to apologize for another small delay. "As you know, this flight was originally supposed to leave at 7pm, but the first craft had some maintenance issues. We had to wait a little while to get this plane, but it also had a few maintenance issues. We're just working through the paperwork now, so we should be leaving shortly. The intercom between myself and the control tower is having some issues, but I'm not too concerned. Thank you once again for choosing American, and we hope you enjoy your flight."

Not too concerned? I'm not an expert on planes by any means, but I've always assumed it was rather important for the pilot to be able to communicate with the control tower. "Is it okay to land? [silence] Hello? [silence] I'll take that as a yes."

Meanwhile, the male flight attendant was frightening the people in the exit row behind me in an attempt to get them to look over the emergency procedure manuals. "Ma'am, do you even know where to look to find out how to open that door?" The woman scoffed and told him that she had no idea. "Well, ma'am, the last two times I've been in an emergency situation, the people in this row were absolutely clueless. I'd like to fix that."

The frightened woman across the aisle from the clueless woman spoke up and mentioned that the information could be found in the brochure in the seat pocket. This pleased the flight attendant, so he offered her a free drink as a reward. She relaxed and beamed, obviously pleased with herself. Meanwhile, everyone else in the exit row nervously began skimming through the instructions and simultaneously glaring at the know-it-all. (Considering the fact that our pilot was so uninterested in talking to the control tower, I personally wish they would have done more skimming and less glaring.)

Obviously, I'm still alive, and once again I can thank American Airlines for that. I enjoyed a lovely ride home with my family, I got to wake up to the whinier cat landing on my face, and I have done nothing but relax all day long. I even had to take a nap to take a break from the relaxing. Deep down, though, I am paralyzed with fear. Because of that, I would like to take this moment to say a few words to the kind people at American Airlines.

Dearest AA Peeps,

Please stop scaring the pants off your passengers. Most of your passengers don't look too hot without pants, and scaring people is just mean. Also, note that the only reason I'm not going to sue you for emotional distress (or whatever it is that people are suing for these days) is because I'm lazy and apparently not wearing any pants. Therefore, I request that you treat yourselves to something fun today to celebrate that I'm not suing you. I suggest a glass of chocolate milk, a balloon animal, or perhaps even a day at the zoo.

I'm also secretly hoping that by partaking in a bit of fun, you might remember how cool it is to not scare the pants off of people. You might even remember how nice it is to feed your cute little passengers instead of skimping on the snack mix after a two-hour delay. Anyway, I'll be seeing you again on Sunday afternoon, so I hope you'll consider repenting of your evil ways before then. Meanwhile, have a fun week! Thanks for keeping me alive!

Lots of love and a smidgen of bitterness,
Rachelskirts

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to do some laundry, switch some clocks, and spend the rest of the night relaxing and drinking chocolate milk.

When I was five years old, I promised my mother I would never cut my hair or be a rebellious teenager. I used to envision myself being a sweet sixteen-year-old who would accidentally break the hearts of all the princes simply with her beauty and brains and charm. When I pictured myself at twenty-one years old, I thought I would be sitting in a dorm room at Yale, reading through a sexy pair of spectacles and unknowingly causing all the college princes to swoon with every subconscious twirl of my long, shiny hair.

Obviously, every cute guy worth having is secretly a prince.

Last night, I was noting how drastically different my life now is from how I envisioned it would be all those years ago. In fourth grade, I let my best friend convince me to cut my hair for the first time for "Twin Day" at school. At sixteen years of age, I was awkward and nerdy and brainy and only popular when I would let people copy my notes or my homework. I was several years into my rebellious stage by that point and was probably anything but sweet.

Here I am at twenty-one years old. I have the long, shiny hair and the (seldom-worn) sexy glasses, but I never made it to Yale University. (The application fee was $75! What high school student has that kind of money laying around for college applications?) I have yet to seduce a prince with my literacy, but I guess there's still time for that.

While I may seem like a huge disappointment when compared to the dreams I had as a child, I look at my friends and realize that I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I get to spend the weekends squished on Boy's couch with five or more boys and surrounded by ten others, all of whom are fantastic and amazing people.

In fact, I love them so much that I almost cried tonight at the beauty of this conversation when I realized that, had I gone to Yale, I never would have heard a word of it...

Pimp: You have a chunk of something in your teeth, Boy.
[Boy digs around in his mouth for a minute, finally dislodging the offending "chunk" and staring at it incredulously for a minute before speaking.]
Boy: What the deuce?
Cooley: It looks like a piece of meat.
Pimp: It looks like you ate your booger.

When I first saw the previews for Green Street Hooligans many moons ago, I screeched to myself as I sat alone in my parents' family room and promised Elijah Wood that he would soon have a date with me in the theaters. Sadly, I was penniless the entire time the movie was showing, so I watched Lord of the Rings even more than usual just to make it up to my dear blue-eyed love.

This week, I finally got around to watching the movie as part of my "action movie week," in which I watch men punch or shoot each other, sometimes whilst shirtless. The line-up thus far has included Fight Club and Casino Royale, but neither of them could provide for me what Green Street Hooligans gave me — a valid reason for popping one's collar and the most adorable accents on the planet.

Of course, my favorite part of the week was comparing the abs of Brad Pitt and Daniel Craig with the adorable fluff of Elijah Wood. Is polygamy still illegal?