The Skydiving Incident

This story is completely true. Until we get to the skydiving part, that is.

In his book Red Dragon, Thomas Harris said (I’m paraphrasing) that fear is the price of imagination. This rung true for me because most of my fears are indeed based upon my ability to imagine the worst.
The best example of this is my fear of heights. It’s one of those primal, crippling fears that I rarely even attempt to overcome. Don’t misunderstand; my acrophobia isn’t so bad that I steadfastly remain on terra firma regardless of the situation, like John Madden’s long-lost son. I’m not that much of a pussy. My phobia simply means that, on the occasions that I do tempt fate, I cannot help but imagine the horrible and gruesome death that my hubristic ascent into the heavens must surely lead to.
For example, anytime I find myself on a plane I inevitably picture the plane losing all power and dropping from the sky like the multi-ton hunk of metal that it is (airplanes are unnatural; surely only witchcraft of the most evil sort keeps them in the sky). I imagine my subsequent descent into madness, in which I lose all control over my mind and bodily functions, for the long wait between the realization that I am going to die and my actual death is what truly terrifies me about heights.
I have repelled into an open cavern (with no walls or stalactites nearby to provide even the slightest comfort), the only thing between me and my piñata-style death being a terrifyingly thin bit of climbing rope. I tried to enjoy the experience of hanging hundreds of feet above a cave floor, and I might have done so for about 6.3 microseconds, but the rest of the descent was spent in the company of an extreme surety that, any second now, that thin rope was going to snap and send me plummeting to a grisly death in which I would (with my luck) end impaled upon a stalagmite.
Then there was the trip I took to Italy with my family. We were in Florence, I believe, and decided to climb to the top of a bell tower or something. The stairs are on the inside of the building, you say? No problemo. Up we went. And up. And up. Until that point, I was convinced that only an Escher drawing had that many stairs. I was mistaken. When we finally reached the roof, we found ourselves approximately 80,000 feet above the city of Florence. It was beautiful. Pants-wettingly beautiful. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but imagine the inevitable earthquake that the gods would send to punish me for climbing to such unnatural heights. The earthquake would topple this tower of Babel, sending me racing towards the earth with thousands of tons of rubble at my flailing heels, just in case the drop somehow spared my life.
Despite this healthy and justifiable fear of a horribly protracted death, I occasionally get it into my head to tempt the Fates. This explains the repelling. It also explains the skydiving trip I recently took. Deciding that I once again needed to face my fears, I took a friend up on an offer to go skydiving. Sounds like fun, right?
We arrived at the airport at 9:00 AM and the process began. We signed waivers. “Something something undersigned…something something liability…blah blah high risk…blah blah see you in the afterlife…” Wait—what?! I re-read the end and was relieved to see that that last bit was merely a figment of my overactive imagination. I signed at the bottom, feeling the mild unease that one must surely experience when signing one’s own will. A little spooked, I began climbing into my jumpsuit, beginning to feel like a man who was being prepared for execution, but oddly giddy as well.
Our instructors did their instructy thing, telling us what to expect, how not to hurt ourselves when leaving the plane and landing, and generally psyching us up for a “bitchin’ time, dudes!” It worked. I was excited. You always jump tandem on your first jump, so I had a talk with my instructor before getting on the plane.
“Look, I’m kinda afraid of heights, so I might need a little help out the door. No matter what I do or say, I want you to please make sure we jump out of that plane as planned, okay?”
“No problem, bro. I’ve jumped with plenty of people like you. We always end up jumping and they always thank me for the help with that first step. It’s gonna be epic!”
I thanked him for his assurances and we all climbed into the plane. We took our seats and off we went into the wild blue yonder. The first thing that I noticed is that this aircraft, a medium-sized prop plane, was decidedly less steady than your average passenger plane.
“Okay,” I told myself, “I should have expected this. It’s a lot lighter than the other planes I’ve been on, so I’m sure that this alarming increase in bumps and noise is perfectly normal.” I tried to calm myself.
Up and up we went. It felt like an eternity. Finally we leveled out and I took a peak out of a window. I’m pretty sure I see stars. And was that a satellite that just cruised by at a bajillion miles per hour? The first creeping tendrils of mind-numbing terror began to wrap around my mind.
What the fuck am I doing?! I’m terrified of heights, and I’m about to jump out of a perfectly functional airplane! Good lord, I’m gonna die! The parachute is going to fail and my instructor and I are going to race each other towards our deaths. We are going to become one, in the most inescapable and appalling manner, with the earth and each other. Oh shit, I am officially freaking out!
Then someone opened the door.
It was as if they opened the door to Hades itself. The wind shrieked like a banshee, buffeting everyone inside with icy cold. I swear I could hear the screaming of the damned in that wind, and they’re all saying the same thing: “You’re gonna die, honky!”
“Dude, I can’t do this!” I yelled over the wailing wind. “I appreciate this opportunity to laugh in Death’s face, but I think I’m going to pass, ride down with the sane people piloting this thing, and live the rest of my life with a healthy and responsible fear of Death instead.”
The instructor laughed and told me everything would be fine. That son of a bitch! I decided that if I live through this I’m going to kill him and everyone he’s ever loved. Twice.
My friend and her instructor positioned themselves at the door. She gave me the thumbs up, turned back to the door and jumped out. I’m convinced that it’s the last time I’ll ever see her, unless, of course, you count the quick glimpse I’ll get of her mangled corpse embedded in the ground before I hit and become one myself.
We began walking towards the door. At this point I am nearly insane with fear. I beg. I plead. I threaten. Nothing fazes this guy.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t think I forgot what you told me! ‘No matter what I do or say, I want you to make sure we jump.’ I’m helping you face your fears, dude! Have fun with this!”
The small sliver of me that has managed to remain sane makes a mental note to invent time travel with the intent of going back in time and kicking my own stupid ass for uttering what was clearly the stupidest thing I’ve ever said. I’ll give me a beating I won’t soon forget!
I continued begging anyway. I was now crying, complete with snot running down my face. The instructor, hooked to my back, couldn’t see this. He patted me on the shoulder and we were out, falling towards the earth at what will soon be terminal velocity.
I screamed like a 5-year old girl who has just watched an axe-murderer butcher her favorite pony.
I flailed like an epileptic spider monkey.
Never in all my life have I experienced such mind-altering terror. My mind couldn’t even begin to process the enormity of the fear I was experiencing as I plummeted towards what was surely my death. And, oh great zombie Jesus, did I just…
Yep. I just wet myself.
At first it was warm, a somehow soothing feeling that spread from my nether regions. This did not last long. The thing about the air at that height is that it’s cold. The warmth of my ever-spreading urine is no match for the bitter cold of the air and wind at several thousand feet. The icy hands of fate quickly turned my naughty bits into a crotchsicle. I began to fear that, even should the parachute properly deploy, my now frozen penis might just snap off upon landing.
I estimate that it was at about this time that my instructor noticed something was wrong, because he suddenly yelled, “Dude!” He yanked the chord, and, much to my surprise, the parachute unfurled without a hitch.
“Dude, did you piss yourself?!” are the first words I’m able to hear once the wind dies down.
“Um, no!” I yelled back, trying to find a way to save my dignity. “I think we hit a duck! That must be blood!”
He wasn’t buying it. “Dude! Uncool, man! Uncool! I’m covered in man-piss!”
And without warning, my instructor began to retch uncontrollably.
This was an extremely unfortunate situation for me, as I was directly in front of him. As warm, chunky vomit covered my head and back I did what came naturally. I myself began to puke. Violently.
“BLAAARGH! OH GOD!” I screamed. “BLAAAAAARGH! SOME OF YOUR PUKE GOT IN MY MOUTH! BLAAAAAAAAAARGH!”
And so we descended back to earth, an ever-dwindling twin fountain of bile and breakfast. We landed and crumpled to the ground, two men covered from head to toe in vomit and urine, dry-heaving in the puke-splattered grass.
“Never—HUUUUUAAH—again—HUUUUUGGGGH,” I said between heaves.
“You got—HUAARGH—that right—HUUUAAAAH—buddy!” came my instructor’s reply.
And thus was I banned from skydiving in Colorado. I attempted to get my money back, citing the unprofessional manner in which my instructor unloaded the contents of his stomach onto me, but they would hear nothing of it.
Apparently a little pee puts the blame squarely on me.

*I would like to thank Tucker Max for inspiring me to move past simple urination and go for the gold--a full on floating vomitfest.