Modern travel has undoubtedly been shaped by commercial air flight. People fly as if it is a common matter and think rarely of the dynamics of flight. Two years ago in Costa Rica I was given a rude awakening to the science and danger of taking to the sky in a man made box of steel. I was on a vacation with some friends (just the normal tourist, beach thing, nothing too fun) when our flight got delayed because of heavy rain. I usually do not mind flight delays; it gives you time to read or get to know the people around you. This time, however, I was not the most excited person in South America. There was not another flight back to Chicago for four days, so I knew my options were either going to be sitting in the airport attempting to learn Spanish for a good part of the week or attempt to get back using a series of transfers. The problem with traveling internationally, at least for me, is that you always want direct flights; transfers in foreign countries are confusing and usually mean hours of lines and rude people. However, in this case, I knew it was unavoidable. We arranged a flight from Costa Rica to Panama then to Hawaii then home. Luckily, I was traveling with some people who, to say the least, get taken care of by the Airline industry. Frequent flyers are treated better no matter what anyone says. All was good and we headed out to Panama. Hooray for canals and what ever else they got (in fact I didn’t care, as long as there was an airport). This flight was good and we landed at 3pm. Our flight to Hawaii was scheduled to leave in an hour, but for some reason we couldn’t find it listed on any of the arrival/departure signs. My frequently flying friends inquired and were told the flight was still scheduled but only 8 people were on board so it was not listed. Excited that were had half of the plane to ourselves we quickly sought out the bar, which we couldn’t find. So we waited. When it was time to board, a man who looked like a pilot (which he was) came and got us personally. We just thought the airline was being especially nice to it’s best customers and followed along. We walked out on the tarmac and saw our death trap of a plane. This plane looked like it had been in the second World War: I was looking for bullet holes the whole time. Just before we got on the pilot whipped a scale out of his bag and motioned for everyone to step on it before boarding. After stepping on it the pilot would whisper to the co-pilot where to seat us in the plane. Apparently this plane was so old, the weight actually had to be balanced in order to fly. So long story short, I spent multiple hours shaking as I road the oldest plane I have ever seen though a storm sitting next to a seven year old kid. The moral of this story is, just wait. Four days is a long time to wait to see your family, but imaging how long they would have to wait to pull your scorched corpse out of the Pacific Ocean.