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A lot of times, but not all of the time, when I say I'm never going to do something, it's a sure sign that I will. Like having sex with a certain boy. Or something. For example. But when I tell you now that I'm seriously considering never again boarding an airplane for as long as I continue to live, I really am not fucking kidding you.

I hate flying. I do it, but I hate it. Even the airport makes me nervous. I hate the takeoff most of all. Also, I hate the landing. When we hit the ground I am always certain that we are speeding wildly out of control, careening down the runway, like we'd fall off the end of it, to our untimely deaths. I also hate the sound of the engines that never seems quite right. And I hate the tone of the call button for the flight attendant. It just screams emergency. I hate flying in big planes because I think it's so obvious that we were not meant to pile tons of humans, with all those pounds of baggage, into a huge heavy machine made out of what? Metal? And fly into the air. We were not meant to fly. We were not born with wings. Aerodynamics? Please. I hate flying in small planes too because I think those are always the ones more likely to go. It happens all of the time. Hello? Buddy Holly? Ritchie Valens? Stevie Ray Vaughan? Aaliyah? John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister what's-her-name? Exactly.

So some smartass friend of mine thought it would be fun to see Charlie Victor Romeo at PS 122 last weekend. Charlie Victor Romeo (CVR, which stands for cockpit voice recording) is a play adapted from real Black Box recordings from real airplane disasters and near-catastrophies. The fact that it was a reenactment of actual flight emergencies, reawakening the voices of the dead who tried to navigate these situations, coupled with the sparse set and complete lack of romance or sentimentality made it one of the most creepily engaging performances I've ever seen. Dude, I was shitting bricks.

I think that you should go see it so I won't tell you too much more about it other than the following two things. At one point, in the very first segment, a pilot says to his co-pilot, "Man, I hate flying at night!" Um. That's not what I want the person with my life in his or her hands to be saying, feeling, or even thinking. If I do ever fly again, I'll never do it at night.

There is also a flight that goes down shortly after takeoff because of "multiple birds." Do you hear me? Birds. Multiple birds fly into the engine, the airplane crashes, no survivors. This is absolutely terrifying of course, because though you may be able to build flying machines and fancy computers and train people to use them, you cannot, as you know, control birds. I am having a panic attack just thinking about it.

Oh my God, then there's this other plane... Okay, I won't even get into it. But the situation involves a piece of tape. Fuck. Where's my Xanax?

As you might have guessed, my smartass friend and I needed stiff drinks after CVR. We came up with some questions that we wanted to ask the cast and directors. Like, "Did you guys ever see 'Catch Me If You Can' where Leonardo DiCaprio pretended to be a pilot? That's kind of like you guys." And, "Were there peanuts or pretzels on that one flight from Peru? Was this before they replaced peanuts with pretzels? Why'd they do that? Because people are allergic to nuts? Don't you think they should have both peanuts and pretzels and let people decide for themselves?" Or, "Do you know Leslie Nielsen?"

We also came up with some suggestions. Production notes, if you will. For instance, we thought that maybe when the plane goes down because of multiple birds, just a beat after it hits the ground, they could drop some feathers down from the ceiling.