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By Hillary Ibarra

A long flight is like a prison sentence. The food is terrible; they won't let you exercise much; and even if your cellmates seem nice, you just wish they would leave you alone. You want to make a run for it, but you've heard nobody gets very far.

I have many flying issues, not the least of which is that when I'm traveling, it is psychologically impossible for me to use the restroom in a meaningful way. Never mind the minuscule lavatory on the plane with its creepy loiterers and a commode that sounds like it's going to suck you into another dimension. No, even in an airport bathroom, if I think even one person knows what I am doing in that stall, I cannot do what I must.

Sure, I know it's purely strangers coming and going, but there could be that one lady in the corner freshening makeup and communing with her cell phone. As I exit she'll slip me a sinister note: I know what you did in the last 10 minutes. Then on a connecting flight hundreds of miles later I'll get to my assigned seat only to find a picture of a potty taped to the snack tray.

Because of these hang-ups, I sit on the plane squirming in increasing discomfort, fully aware that if I release the gas torturing my belly and preventing me from crossing my legs, my fellow passengers will be horrified as I become airborne in a whole new way. You know the situation is bad when as the plane lurches during extreme turbulence, all you can think is: I hope I get the chance to use the restroom before I die.

On this last trip to the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop, I had to fly on a tiny aircraft, the kind assigned to passengers going to boring places — mostly in the Midwest. The flight attendant referred to the pilots as a captain and his first officer, and I couldn't help but be skeptical and afraid, because neither one looked like he was quite 18 years old. I could just picture the airline executives saying to these lads, "Well, you really do need some flying experience in case you have to transport passengers somewhere other than Ohio, so here's a plane that holds about 50 people. Now get up there, you young devils, and have some fun! But not too much. These people don't like excitement!"

My fear of flying is always exacerbated on the descent. I can feel the plane losing altitude by degrees, and I am always suspicious. Are we supposed to be doing that now? It seems too soon. Why isn't the captain saying anything? Does he know we're about to nosedive? Does he want to keep us oblivious, enjoying our last few moments? I don't see any buildings out the window. We're going to die!

Of course, the captain does eventually come on to say we've started our descent into some city or other, and I breathe a sigh of relief even as I resentfully think, Well, why didn't he say so?

For me, the descent also causes nausea akin to morning sickness. I sit pale-faced and erect, trying not to look toward the ground. My queasiness simultaneously reminds me of car sickness as a child when I had to puke into my mom's purse and the time I threw up a sausage and egg biscuit while flying during my first pregnancy. I have to chant to myself repeatedly, "Do not think about what you ate for lunch! Do not think about what you ate for lunch!" Which means, of course, that I think about what I ate for lunch down to the last limp fry and sesame seed in disgusting detail.

When we finally hit the ground, I am desperate to get that first whiff of non-recycled air as we taxi like a snail to our gate and then wait 10 feet away from it for at least a half hour before the ground crew waves us in.

I then watch my fellow prisoners being released row by row and wonder if my time will ever come. Miracle of miracles, it does, and as soon as I complete my drunken stagger down the gangway to freedom, I make a beeline for the fast food.

Brutal experience has taught me that nothing quite builds an appetite for greasy food like constipation, imprisonment and fear of death.

— Hillary Ibarra

Hillary Ibarra has had several humor pieces published on Aiming Low and the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop blog and was recently published at Hahas for Hoohas. She is a mother of four who dreams of playing the banjo, living in Jane Austen's childhood homeand writing for more than spam artists and 50 loyal readers but can't seem to find them in the laundry. She is the mysterious blogger at No Pens, Pencils, Knives or Scissors. In her spare time she likes to threaten to sell her children to the zoo, and their little dog, too.