Xanax: Just in case

So the local news channels were, naturally, all abuzz about today's closing of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnels that may or may not be terror related.

One of the little stories in the wall-to-wall coverage of the incident concerned a woman trapped in a Greyhound Bus that was stopped inside one of the tunnels for over an hour. Her six-year-old daughter did not react well to the delay. This brought to mind another tunnel/bus horror story that I experienced about 10 years ago.

It was one of those hideous August evenings in New York. You know the kind: At least 90 degrees with the humidity sending the heat index into the unbearable-for-humans category. And we were in an unairconditioned bus slowly creeping into the Lincoln Tunnel. Shortly after we made it inside, all hell broke loose. Sirens, cops, ambulances--an accident in the tube--our tube. As the minutes ticked on, all talking stopped. Everyone was just breathing through their mouths, praying to God that we'd start moving soon and get out of this living hell.

And then a woman from the back of the bus ran up to the door and began pleading with the bus driver to let her out. "I've got to get out! I can't take this anymore!!" She began pounding on the door.

It was horrible. Because, of course, she gave voice to what we were all thinking: Am I gonna die of asphyxiation in this godforsaken tunnel? Will I collapse from heat stroke? Will I drown in my own sweat? So on top of the heat, the smog, the horns and sirens there was this twanging as the collective muscles of about 70 people clenched to see what would happen next. Would the driver let her off? Would we all succumb to her madness and start clamoring to be let out? Would a riot ensue?

Thankfully, the bus driver had one of those low, calming voices and he somehow managed to talk the woman down. But she still stood at the front of the bus, grasping a pole and panting until the bus got moving again.

Flash forward to November 2001. I'm on the Garden State Parkway, driving to library school and musing about my upcoming Thanksgiving trip to California when all of a sudden it occurs to me that, once the plane is aloft, I won't be able to get off.

Now, this may sound elementary to you. But I pictured myself wedged into one of those crummy seats in coach between an old drunk and a fat lady, stuck for five hours. And unable to change my mind. Unable to say: Never mind, I'll be staying home this Thanksgiving. And I thought of that woman on the bus. And I thought, "What an ignominious end: To go down, with a planeload of passengers, after having forced the emergency exit open because I had to get off the plane."

And that is why, boys and girls, I always carry Xanax with me. Because you never know when a panic attack will strike.