Saturday, October 13, 2007

Biggest mistake I never made

Usually you identify your mistakes after you've made them. I was on a flight recently for work and remembered a mistake I didn't make that would have been pretty catastrophic if I'd made it.

I was on a trip in high school, and was still pretty confused about the whole inflatables thing. I hadn't learned to cope with it, hadn't really embraced it, and certainly hadn't told anybody about it. So I'm on the plane and I realize...there's an inflatable vest under my seat. You know, like this:

And I remember thinking...wow, free inflatable. Because in high school, you're often stupid.

I spent the whole flight wondering, can I take this with me? Is it like the magazine in the front pocket? And then I started thinking, you know, what if the plane goes down on the next flight? Someone wouldn't know it was missing. And what if they did do a safety check and realized it was not there? My name is on that ticket for that seat...they'd catch me. And it's probably a federal offense. And that would mean I would have to explain why I stole an inflatable item when my parents came to get me.

It wasn't worth the risk, but I remember being INSANELY tempted to take it. Just because, you know, it was something inflatable.