We will all find ourselves, at some point or other, powerless and feeble during life-threatening situations. The lucky ones, who, as many say, have yet to settle a score with their maker—bad grass, being yet another term for it—have accidental brushes with death and live to tell. They do so because at that particular time and place some random person, whether kin or complete stranger, in an act of kindness and empathy, performs some Herculean task to spare them of an untimely exit.
But I speak here of voluntary self-exposure to high-risk, death-defying stunts that the world has now come to know as extreme sports.
Several months ago in Sydney, Australia, I chanced upon an advertisement collateral—a poster—at Franklin’s supermarket in Newtown between the frozen section and the house cleaning implements aisle, advertising tandem skydiving. It read: “See all of Sydney from the sky.” What arrested my eye was neither the campaign slogan nor the blurbs from famous celebrities who had tried it but the colorful red and gold jumpsuit of the male model and what remained visible of fine facial features under his protective goggles. Even more compelling was the fact that he was airborne and stuck to a skydiving instructor two times better looking than he was. Shucks, I thought, what a totally legit way for a middle-aged, married woman to be in full body contact with a drop-dead gorgeous man.
Okay, why the hell not, I reasoned with myself. I wouldn’t mind an aerial photo wearing the same groovy get-up with wind-blown hair pinned to a handsome, live prop. As the check-out cashier started ringing up my purchases, I remembered Leonardo da Vinci’s saying, which I had come across as a teen-ager: “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return.”
And so I did it. I called the number on the poster and faster than you can say “The quick brown fox…” I found myself in that very same spiffy, curve-enhancing, tummy-flattening, butt-augmenting jumpsuit at Woologong s Skydive Center an hour outside Sydney in 13 degrees below zero weather. My teeth were chattering both from the cold and the terror. For once, I stood motionless and speechless as I listened to a man briefing us on how to skydive off of a moving aircraft from 14,000 feet above ground, free-falling for 60 seconds, and then landing with knees firmly locked onto chest for an incident-free landing.
Guess what? The instructor was ten times better looking than the model on the poster—shoulder-length, layered hair, green eyes, an exotic European accent, and a physique to rival Daniel Craig’s as James Bond. This was the only thing that stopped me from making a mad dash out of there; there was no way I was backing out. Well alright, I had already prepaid a premium for the entire exercise, which was non-refundable so even if I were hyperventilating and on the verge of a panic attack, I persevered.
Midway into his spiel on safety procedures, several doubts and concerns barraged my typically female mind. No excuses here; such things are simply hard-wired into our psyche. Don’t we question everything just for the sake of it? But I bit my tongue and held my peace because I realized that if I pissed this man off he could easily unharness me in midair and claim equipment malfunction and that would be that.
I lived to tell because I made like a tree the whole time and followed everything he said with nary a peep. And what do you know; it turned out to be the best experience of my life.
But I speak here of voluntary self-exposure to high-risk, death-defying stunts that the world has now come to know as extreme sports.
Several months ago in Sydney, Australia, I chanced upon an advertisement collateral—a poster—at Franklin’s supermarket in Newtown between the frozen section and the house cleaning implements aisle, advertising tandem skydiving. It read: “See all of Sydney from the sky.” What arrested my eye was neither the campaign slogan nor the blurbs from famous celebrities who had tried it but the colorful red and gold jumpsuit of the male model and what remained visible of fine facial features under his protective goggles. Even more compelling was the fact that he was airborne and stuck to a skydiving instructor two times better looking than he was. Shucks, I thought, what a totally legit way for a middle-aged, married woman to be in full body contact with a drop-dead gorgeous man.
Okay, why the hell not, I reasoned with myself. I wouldn’t mind an aerial photo wearing the same groovy get-up with wind-blown hair pinned to a handsome, live prop. As the check-out cashier started ringing up my purchases, I remembered Leonardo da Vinci’s saying, which I had come across as a teen-ager: “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return.”
And so I did it. I called the number on the poster and faster than you can say “The quick brown fox…” I found myself in that very same spiffy, curve-enhancing, tummy-flattening, butt-augmenting jumpsuit at Woologong s Skydive Center an hour outside Sydney in 13 degrees below zero weather. My teeth were chattering both from the cold and the terror. For once, I stood motionless and speechless as I listened to a man briefing us on how to skydive off of a moving aircraft from 14,000 feet above ground, free-falling for 60 seconds, and then landing with knees firmly locked onto chest for an incident-free landing.
Guess what? The instructor was ten times better looking than the model on the poster—shoulder-length, layered hair, green eyes, an exotic European accent, and a physique to rival Daniel Craig’s as James Bond. This was the only thing that stopped me from making a mad dash out of there; there was no way I was backing out. Well alright, I had already prepaid a premium for the entire exercise, which was non-refundable so even if I were hyperventilating and on the verge of a panic attack, I persevered.
Midway into his spiel on safety procedures, several doubts and concerns barraged my typically female mind. No excuses here; such things are simply hard-wired into our psyche. Don’t we question everything just for the sake of it? But I bit my tongue and held my peace because I realized that if I pissed this man off he could easily unharness me in midair and claim equipment malfunction and that would be that.
I lived to tell because I made like a tree the whole time and followed everything he said with nary a peep. And what do you know; it turned out to be the best experience of my life.
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