Third Grade Math Word Problem

Question, Part I: Chris is taking a 6am flight, lives an hour from the airport, wants to arrive an hour early, and needs a half hour to get ready.  What time would Chris need to wake up?

Answer: 3:30am.

Question, Part II: Chris’ neighbor Taylor is on the same flight, but learned from a young age that “on time” really means “extra early.”  What time would Taylor need to wake up?

Answer: 2:30am. 

It was a moonless night last year, when, like the fictional Taylor, I arose at 2:30am for a 6am flight.  Ten minutes into the drive, on a winding, wooded road, my car hit a massive pothole.  I quickly assessed the situation.  In my tired brain, there were many reasons why I just couldn’t miss this flight – all of which felt vital.  Besides, the car seemed OK (ish). I kept driving.

A half hour later, the tire exploded.

I was now on a major highway, but managed to pull over to the side of the road before the car died.  There was no cell service.  But there was a construction site a few hundred feet away.  I walked to the site and asked a state trooper for help. He said I needed to call a tow truck.  Seriously?

I asked a second trooper to call AAA for me, but he informed me, with a straight face, that he wasn’t allowed to help, because it wasn’t his job.  I walked up and down the side of the highway, and finally found enough cell service to call a tow truck and Uber.  I returned to my lifeless car, and everyone was gone.  Not a soul in sight.  

I waited, alone, on the side of the highway.  Cars whizzed by.  The tow truck came and left with the car.  The Uber dot moved closer and closer on the map, but then turned in the opposite direction and stopped.  I could actually see the driver’s car over the highway barrier, across 6 lanes, waiting for me.  The drama went on, but the driver finally arrived and took me to the airport.  It would have been a comedy of errors if it had only been funny.

In an ironic twist of fate, I made my flight.  With time to spare.  

But in retrospect, it might have been better if I’d missed it.  Because the outcome reinforced an anxious narrative and behavior –  that in the future, I’d better leave extra, extra early, because what if my tire explodes again and I get stuck in the dark on the side of a highway with heartless state troopers?  

Another person might have correctly attributed my safe airport arrival to luck.  But for me, making the flight bolstered the myth that I have control over unpredictable events.  That it’s worth it to be early 100 times, to make up for the one time something unpredictable might happen.  That it’s worth the danger of driving on a busted tire for a half hour in the middle of the night, rather than call a family member for help, and probably miss the flight.  

This is all on my mind since I’ll be flying tomorrow morning for the first time since that unfortunate event.  I’ve been going over the word problem again and again in my mind.  What time do I need to get up?  I’ve always been Taylor, but could I become Chris?

I’m going to try a little exposure therapy.  Get some extra sleep, leave at a more reasonable time.  Hopefully I won’t end up on the side of the road.  But I’m starting to understand that I might enjoy life more if I miss a flight once in a blue moon instead of arriving ridiculously early a hundred times.