"Oh, come over! We should go skydiving."
See, I have been trying to get up to Santa Barbara to jump for months, and Stace's visit from the ahem, Texas was the perfect excuse. She actually didn't even take much coaxing at all, but see, that was all part of my plan.
When I'm about to make you do something I don't think you'll do, I scheme for days. I will mention it in a manner similar to above and then drop it. You, subsequently think that I have gotten over whatever hare-brained idea I mentioned and also drop it. But then, the day before or day of, I bring it around again. This time you don't have time to think about it too much or argue. It works. How do you think I got my dad to pack up my stuff for me in Spokane? When you don't give people time to think about it, generally they will say yes when rushed. I'm not saying it's right, but it works.
Stace and I had a lovely drive up the CA coast to SB that morning. I told her to call her parents and brothers, just in case. Know what she did? Left a message on her parents answering machine with the main message being "Burn me, don't bury me." Lordy, this girl.
We crawled into the tiiiiiiiniest plane ever that barely fit us plus our tandem divers, and the pilot. Twenty minutes later, we were two and a half miles above the earth and up went the plexiglass garage door. (there has to be a name for that?!) Stace had been in pretty good spirits up until then, and I felt pretty good about dragging her up here to participate in my ridiculousness. However, as she approached the door, the look on her face was horrifying. She was ashen and likely not breathing. My stomach dropped out of my rectum, thinking she was going to back out. My mind was racing with things I could say to her to calm her down. Instead, all I said was: "Jesus will carry you! See ya!" I know, not the most eloquent last words.
But I was right! Stace dropped out of that plane like a pro and I followed soon after. Perhaps I should have been more concerned with my own welfare, instead of hers. I have a suspicion that my tandem diver had to pull the "oh shit" chute. See, once you fall to a certain altitude, he is supposed to pull the parachute. If it doesn't deploy, there are two back up chutes, just in case. I suspect we had some trouble because we free-falled (sp?) for a looong time. Mind you, I loved it, but it was considerably longer than I remembered. Plus, we were the last ones out of the plane and the first on the ground by a lot, which means we spent much more time falling and less time with a deployed parachute than Stace and her tandem diver. After the chute deployed, I was looking down for Stace and she was actually still waaaaaay above us. I'm not saying..... I'm just sayin.
Ain't life grand? Jump out of airplanes, people. This is the hokey pokey. Go right meow.
Love Love Love.
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