I went to church a couple of months ago, and I didn’t burst into flames or anything like that, contrary to my expectations.

I was born and raised Catholic, and went to Catholic grade school and high school, but I’m not a practicing Catholic. I’m about as Catholic as Martin Luther.

My mom and dad came into town and I thought they might want to go to church on a Sunday, being Catholics in the non-nominal, actual practical practicing way.

“I’m touched that you’d take us to church,” my mom said. “I’m shocked,” my dad said. “I mean, I’m not shocked.” Apparently, my parents thought I might burst into flames, too.

I had forgotten some of the words, but I still knew most of the steps. I go about once a year, with some of my family at Christmas, but this time, making the sign of the cross, I started to remember church as a kid.

I remember standing in one place that whole time was a real problem. Shifting my weight back and forth, back and forth, right leg to left leg to right leg . . . locking my knees, then unlocking my knees. Curling my foot and uncurling my foot. I must have gotten better at standing somewhere along the way because it wasn’t so hard this time.

Also the “peace be with you” hand shakes and Lord’s Prayer hand holding were no longer fraught with adolescent anxiety. If I was at the end of my family in the pew I always worried about who’s hand I would have to hold. And wherever I stood, I worried about the “peace be with you” handshakes. Who was standing behind me, who would I see for the first time when I turned to shake hands? I had to always be prepared, in case it was a pretty girl.

After the Eucharist, I sat in my pew and watched the stream of people walk up, receive communion, and then walk past me back to their seats. You’re supposed to muse on God and such while you sit there after communion, but when I was a teenager, somewhat less piously than I think Jesus would have liked, I used to watch the girls who walked by, again, hoping for pretty girls and trying to look devout and sexy at the same time . . . (go ahead, try it). And then there was the guilt!

Of course, now as the crowd walked by, I noticed the parishioners who had swaddled babies in their arms, or held hands with their tottering rugrats. Aww cute. Apparently my biological man clock is ticking loudly somewhere.

Coming up in August, I have the terrifying opportunity to take a helicopter ride down into the Grand Canyon (it’s an integral part of my two friends’ Vegas wedding).

When I say “opportunity” I mean “Oh my God is that safe?” I’m just starting to fly — in airplanes — with a relaxed white-knuckle grip on the tray table in front of me. But helicopters? Like in ‘Nam?

I decided to do some Interweb searchings to still my beating heart. Surely, helicopters are extremely safe contraptions to routinely defy the laws of physics like they do. I tried googling “helicopter safety.”

Don’t try this at home. I landed at www.helicoptersafety.org, and this is the Web banner that greeted me:

There are a few problems with this Web banner. Perhaps you can spot them, “Where’s Waldo” like.

First and foremost in my mind, was that the helicopter pictured is not in the air. And it is not safe on a landing pad, either. It appears to be “resting” on the surface of a lake, which is not the optimal end result of my preferred landing procedure.

Next is the “Y” in “Helicopter Safety.” The “Y” has fallen off the word “Safety,” and is cracked in half. Helicopters, apparently, do not put the “Y” in “Safety.”

And lastly, but certainly not least, is the banner’s tagline: “Let’s Stay Alive!” Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the sentiment. In fact, this is a rousing affirmation of just the thing I want to do on my helicopter journey. But I’d rather staying alive be more of a given, and not so much a lofty goal.

I foolishly proceeded past the banner to the rest of the site, which consists almost entirely of botched helicopter landing videos, YouTube style. Botched helicopter landing videos are immensely captivating to someone afraid of botched helicopter landings (OK, we could crash this way. . . or like that . . . interesting . . .), but have sort of the opposite effect of what I was looking for.

After watching the videos, the Web banner makes total sense to me.

I have a bad habit of responding to people who are in no way talking to me.

The other day, the cashier said “Thanks so much!” and I turned around from the door and gave her a hearty “Thank you!” back, thinking, boy, she really appreciates a customer, even if it’s just a small cappuccino, only to see that she was, obviously, in conversation with someone she knew, about something else entirely.

The other other day, on a plane, I totally went the other way. I was at the window and in the center and aisle seats were two women, relatives or good friends, who went through each other’s bags and chatted easily.

Airplanes are getting smaller, I think, in tandem with my own bodily expansion, and the center-seat lady and I shared the armrest, arriving at an amount of arm-touching that we could live with. I turned to my magazine and later, as she went through her purse, I heard her quietly say, “I’m sorry.”

Was she apologizing to me? Had the arm touching increased to apology-necessitating levels as she jostled her purse? I hadn’t noticed, my mind having been occupied by my magazine and the improbable nature of jet flight.

She kept her gaze steadily into her purse, apologizing, it seemed, to her bag. What if I missed a conversation between her and her relative? What if her relative said, “My shoulder hurts,” and Mrs. Center Seat said, “I’m sorry?” and I only caught the last part?

In that half-second it took me to look up from my magazine, I raced through the above what-ifs, and as I turned to her, I hadn’t made up my mind yet as to what was going on. So what came out of my mouth was, “Hmmmm.”

Not, “Hmmmm?” like “Pardon me?” just the straight up declarative: “Hmmmm.” Like “Hmmmm, you’re odd.” Or “Hmmmm, I’m a dick.”

But by God I didn’t talk out of turn . . .