How to Deal with Claustrophobia

I recently rediscovered this unfortunate fact while taking a twenty-minute ride on the Stuff-'Em-In shuttle service that operates between the Louis Armstrong International Airport and downtown New Orleans.

Claustrophobia is one of those things you don't know you have until it's usually too late. And then, even if you know you have it, you might not really be thinking abut it until you one day find yourself, say, crammed into the northwest corner of an 8-passenger shuttle bus with metal bars directly behind your head, luggage piled to the ceiling behind the bars, three fat people blocking the view in front of you, two large men seated to your right, and a single exit door on the far side of the vehicle with a large red letters above it that read, "Driver Is The Only One Who Can Open This Door."

See? Too late.

Claustrophobics are an unusual breed. They view the entire world in terms of the measure of ease with which they can escape any given physical situation. And so the likelihood that a claustrophobic will willingly step onto an elevator with ten other human inhabitants is about as good as finding a Canadian who likes you. Possible? Yes. Likely? Make me laugh.

But, as luck would have it, this is exactly what caused my second moment of concern -- O.K., unbridled panic, when Elvina, our Literary Legends of the French Quarter tour guide, requested that our group of 20 divide into two equal groups and that each group stuff itself equally into two antiquated elevators and ride to the roof of the Omni Hotel.

Check Please!

Of course, I declined the offer, which resulted in my husband and I subsequently getting separated from the tour group, during which the entire time my husband ran up and down Bourbon Street searching frantically for the tour group and reprimanding me for being a claustrophobic -- forgetting, momentarily, his own irrational fear of snakes and heights and garbage men.

But we needn't travel to the Big Easy to be terrified. Claustrophobics are generally terrified everywhere. The following is a brief list of everyday activities that claustrophobics generally avoid in their day-to-day activities:

Visiting people in jail

Going on rides at the fair that involve any sort of cage

Bathroom stalls with no space on the top or bottom of the door

Riding to the top of the St. Louis Arch

Touring coal mines

Sitting in a car on a ferry during a storm with waves crashing over the windshield.

Participating in trying to see how many people can fit in a telephone booth.

Ditto for Volkswagen Beetle

Underwater submarine rides at Disney World

Cubicles

Being buried in sand up to our necks

Being buried alive in a coffin

Being buried dead in a coffin -- we prefer cremation, thank you.

You see, we're really not all that different from the rest of humanity. So if you happen to know a claustrophobic, don't judge her. Instead, call her up, invite her to lunch or a movie. Just remember, she gets the aisle seat. And if you happen to get seated at a booth for lunch -- you go first.