Illustration by Holly Randall

British author Zadie Smith once described air travel as being "trapped with 300 other strangers of unknown mental health status in a 400 ton aircraft flying 30,000 feet up in the air." Based on my recent flight from Missoula, Mont., back to Tucson, I couldn't agree more.

The security crew at Missoula International Airport consisted of a team of two malicious little men that looked like they'd rather be kicking kittens in a dark alley somewhere. After two agonizing attempts at reading my name on the boarding pass, they narrowed their eyes and told me that all "foreigners" had to undergo a thorough search in the ominous-sounding "Examination Cubicle."

I found this particularly outrageous, especially because the only other suspect in the cubicle was an 80-year-old woman named Amelia whose only disagreeable trait was that she kept confusing me with her long-dead husband Burt. I initially tried to remind her of the fact that I was a good 60 years her junior, but exhausting that, I finally gave up and played along like any other well-practiced spouse, periodically smiling, nodding my head and feigning genuine interest.

Damion LeeNatali Columnist

And so there we sat, a senile old woman and a bemused college student, apparently qualifying as genuine threats to American security. I started to imagine myself as Osama bin Laden, able to stealthily slip past Missoula security because they were too busy frisking octogenarians and small children. Eventually, though, we were excused because the security crew had found a more worthy security threat - a surly cattle rancher named Bob who had refused to surrender his hip flask before boarding the plane.

A few moments later, I concluded that finding your seat on an airplane can either be a matter of exhilaration or dejection, for your "seatmate" will invariably govern whether or not you consider suicide 30 minutes into the flight. It is for this reason that other college students or quiet grandmothers are generally preferable to spoiled, bullying children or their political equivalent - Republicans.

Being fairly reserved, I was relieved to find myself seated next to a quiet,

diminutive woman who smiled meekly when I sat down, saying nothing else. That is, until the plane lurched down the runway, at which time she gripped my arm with inconceivable force and informed me that she was deathly afraid of heights.

Losing circulation in my arm at a worrisome pace, I told her that most people don't even seem to notice after 20,000 feet, a somewhat insensitive comment that had the regrettable effect of causing her to lose consciousness. I promptly raised my hand and asked to be reseated before she could come to.

Seated now between two 13-year-old girls, I quickly began to wonder if I wouldn't have been better off with the Incredible Hulk. Behind me, a shrieking toddler was successfully driving home a point, and his brain-rattling screams were punctuated only by the mindless chatter of my new seatmates, both of whom were engaged in a heated debate centered on the authenticity of Lindsay Lohan's breasts.

Genuinely fearing atrophy of the brain at this point, and considering myself somewhat of an authority on the matter anyway, I informed the both of them that the objects in question were mostassuredly fake but that what matters most is "on the inside anyway."

This initially left them monplussed, and I began to fear that I had just dropped a bomb of "Santa is really your dad and so is the Easter bunny" proportions. Fortunately, they soon let loose with a long string of choice words, stopping only when I shrewdly thrust the latest edition of Cosmopolitan at them. With the teenyboppers placated, I chewed my complimentary pretzels and let slip an involuntary "Oh, merciful God!" when the captain finally announced our initial descent.

As soon as we touched down, the cabin was thrown into chaos as the passengers in the back dispensed with the captain's warnings and made a mad dash for the front. After realizing that we still had 10 minutes worth of taxiing, though, they were left to do nothing but look sheepishly at their feet and avoid the glares of the flight attendant (who, in a gravity-defying effort to dodge the stampede, had somehow managed to wedge herself between the beverage cart and a trash chute).

Ten suffocatingly long minutes later, I was allowed to "deplane" by a flight attendant that looked like she was prepared to neuter me if I gave her any fuss. I smiled, gathered my bags and resolved never to return to the friendly skies.

Damion LeeNatali is a political science and history sophomore who now understands why anyone with money, power and an iota of common sense charter private planes. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.