And *that's* how you land without a parachute OR Gas Station Valet and Orcas: Think about it!

Someone is going to get a stern letter about this.

So last night I was on a road trip with some friends, and it may have been for pleasure, just as it may have been because we were running away from bad people.  It’s anyone’s guess.  However, we’d stopped and were nestling into our beds to go to sleep when we all realized that the reason none of us were tired was because it was only 6:30pm.  I decided I wanted to go sky diving, so I left and found a field where this was happening.  I jumped out of an airplane and remembered feeling very curious because I didn’t feel like I did the last time I went sky diving.  The last and only time I’ve been sky diving was in 2005, in some remote field around the northeastern coast of Australia.  It was a tandem jump from a small plane, at 14,000 feet.  I felt at first amazing weightlessness, then cold air rushing at me from all angles as I plummeted at alarming speeds towards the ground, before floating at a quickened pace towards land.  This time, however, I just felt light, and like I was floating.  Also different this time around: my parachute didn’t deploy.  Unlike most normal people, I didn’t panic.  I merely noticed the issue, continued to try to deploy it, and decided that I’d better figure out a good way to land.  I also remembered thinking about how I was totally going to blog about this, and how I was going to draw a picture of me without a parachute.  Lucky for me it turns out that I am a champ-lander, and I landed effortlessly, merely jogging in place until I hit the ground.  I was glad I was safe, however, giving people faulty parachutes is just bad business, so I had to speak with the management.  I told the HMFIC about the incident, and she immediately understood, apologized for the situation, and asked me to standby while she spoke with some others and tried to figure out how to handle it.  While waiting, I met another man who apparently had the same issue I did.  He reminded me a lot of my friend Nick, the traveling Welshman, but he was a little older and had children.  He was also interested in history, and liked to read- this I discerned from our brief conversation.  I wondered about what my compensation for this grievous mistake would be- would I be given several thousand dollars?  Would I at least get several free passes to come back and have my friends join me on a different jump?  I’d mentally settled on this last possibility, when the manager lady walked back in.  She handed the gentleman a stack of books, I think about World War II, and about British history.  This was to make up for that whole bad-parachute incident.  He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, and said she must have gleaned from a statement he’d made that he liked history.  Apparently he didn’t love it, but he liked it, so he guessed it would do.  Then the manager lady gave me, in recompense, a rifle.  Either that or a large BB gun- hard to tell.  I wondered what in the world I was going to do with this, since I don’t shoot and don’t really have need or want of a gun.  I remember feeling slighted because I had my heart set on those passes.  I remember thinking, “Well, I guess I should figure out how to use this thing, since I now own it.”  And then I was somewhere else entirely, doing something entirely different. 

I guess that’s how dreams work. 

Aren’t dreams wonderful?  I had a dream recently wherein I had to get gas, so I drove to a gas station near the beach.  This was no ordinary gas station, though.  You had to wait in line for a long time, so basically you gave your car to a gas station valet, who would fill it for you when it was time.  In the meantime, you waited in the stands, because underneath and around the gas station was a massive tank for the Orcas.  It was like SeaWorld, while you waited!  Between the whales and the ocean in the background, it was the most beautiful, coolest gas station in the world!  And I went to it! 

Sometimes I wish reality was more like my dreams.  Only when they’re cool dreams, though.  I’ll pass on the ones I have about people trying to kill me.  Those people need to lighten up.