My Biggest Fan

   I recently bought a Lasko Wind Tunnel Fan.  I spent quite a bit of time in the fans aisle at the store, searching for just the right one.  For me, looks aren't really that important in a fan.  I'm interested in the white noise.  Sounds can trigger memories, and I was looking for just the right sound.
   When I was little, we had an old box fan.  I don't know how old it was, but it was encased in a wooden frame that was sturdy enough that an adult could sit on it.  The blades were metal and the front grill consisted of thin metal vertical strips of metal, some of which would vibrate and hum when the fan was blowing.  The fan and the motor combined to make a certain sound that I found very soothing.
   Of course, I was too big to take naps at the time, so on a hot summer day my mom would tell me just to stretch out in front of the fan and rest, perhaps with a book.  And so I did.  The fan sounded like an airplane to me.  And I would imagine that the airplane was a cargo plane, flying over a jungle in South America, bringing supplies to a small village in a valley between two mountains...
...
   And then I would close my eyes.  And I would see the jungle in my mind's eye.  Hanging onto cargo straps, I would lean out the open door on the side of the plane and feel the rush of the wind as we flew ever onward.  The heat of the jungle rose up to the plane, but the wind would keep it pleasantly warm and not too hot.  The cargo plane had pontoons so we could land on the small lake in the valley.  And we would land and unload the supplies to the villagers, who greeted us happily and asked out where we had been, the sights we had seen, and the adventures we'd had on our journeys...       
...
   An hour or so later, I woke up.  Once again, my mom had tricked me into taking a nap.  But I didn't mind.
   Flashing forward to now - I found a fan that, although it's not a wooden and metal sturdy-to-be-furniture fan of yesteryear, came close to the droning of the cargo plane from my childhood imagination.
   Last night I turned the fan on, and feeling the wind wash over me, I imagined once again being in a cargo plane, taking supplies to a far off village.  I was probably asleep in two minutes.