A few days ago I was talking to a family friend, who’s in his late 80s, about how quickly time passes, especially when there still are so many things on my bucket list I want to accomplish.
“What’s a bucket list?” he asked me.
“It’s a list of things I'm hoping to do before I kick the bucket.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, just make sure the noose around your neck is up high enough when they kick the bucket out from under you!”
I got the distinct impression he had no clue what I was talking about.
I still remember the last time I set out to accomplish a major bucket-list item, about 10 years ago.
I wanted to try zip-lining.
I didn't want to experience the adventure alone, however, so I set out to find someone who'd be willing to join me. Believe me, it was a real challenge. After constantly being told by my family and friends that I was crazy, too old, or suffering from (way beyond) a mid-life crisis, and also hearing things like, “Knowing you, you’ll fall off the line and land in a big nest where an angry eagle will attack you,” I finally talked my friends Paul and Nancy into taking the plunge (literally) with me.
I decided to proceed cautiously, however. I didn’t want to try a line that would cost $120 per ride or was 20 stories high and two miles long, and would have me dangling over a boulder-filled ravine. I wanted to try something tamer first, just to determine if I’d enjoy it…or end up emotionally scarred for life.
After a thorough online search, I found what I was certain would be a perfect fit for me - the Escape Velocity Zipline at a water park in Candia, New Hampshire. It was described as 35 feet high, 1,000 feet long, and located directly above a manmade pond. Landing in water if I fell, sounded a little safer to me than landing on jagged rocks and impaling my spleen. Best of all, the ride was only $10. And if I survived the first ride and wanted to go for a second one, the price would drop to only $5.
When Paul, Nancy and I got out of the car at the park, the first thing we saw was the zipline, way up on a hill. Nancy smiled when she looked at it, but it was the kind of smile that looked as if it were frozen in place.
“Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?” she asked.
“After today, you won’t be!” I said cheerfully.
We entered the gift shop, where we were told we would receive our equipment and instructions. Nancy immediately disappeared into the restroom.
Two young male employees converged on me. “Please sign this waiver form,” one said, handing a pen to me. The other put a wristband on me that looked eerily similar to the ones hospital patients wear.
“Are you preparing me in advance for a trip to the hospital?” I joked. Then I happened to glance at the waiver form I was signing. It basically said I wouldn’t hold them liable or sue them if I injured myself…or worse.
I then was instructed to step on the scale. I noticed a sign that said all participants had to weigh between 50 and 250 pounds. I knew I sure as heck didn’t look as if I weighed less than 50, so I wondered if that meant he was checking to see if I might weigh more than 250.
“Should I be insulted?” I asked him.
He laughed. “No, your weight helps us judge which size harness to use.”
Next, I was strapped into my harness. It crossed my chest and then went behind me and underneath my butt. I’m always complaining about how saggy my butt is getting, but not at that moment…because it was lifted up to somewhere between my shoulder blades. I then was handed a pair of thick gloves.
“You’ll need these,” the employee said.
When all three of us were in our harnesses, we were instructed to follow the path up the hill.
To be honest, while hiking up that hill, it dawned on me I was about to plunge 35 feet while hanging from only a steel cable – and I nearly chickened out. I never would have admitted as much to Paul and Nancy, however, especially since the whole thing had been my bright idea.
At the top of the hill were two platforms that actually resembled gallows. Extending above each platform was a zipline. So this park had not one, but two ziplines, side by side. I climbed the steps to the top of one platform and Paul climbed the other. Nancy stayed below and looked as if she might seriously be considering making a mad dash back down the hill…straight to the restroom.
The employee hooked me up to the line, tightened my harness and started reciting instructions.
“Rest your right hand up here and your left hand here,” he said, pointing to different locations on the line. “Then, when you get between those two blue flags down there,” he indicated two very distant blue things (I wasn’t wearing my glasses), “remove your right hand from here and put it flat on top of the line. That’s what will slow you down and act as your brake.”
I then understood the reason for the gloves. I could just picture my bare hand self-combusting as it slid along the thick wire.
As I stood there trying to remember which hand went where, all the while trying not to look down at the crowd of the swimmers in the water park below (swimmers whose heads I was afraid I might get sick all over), Paul leapt off the platform and went zipping away with a loud “rrrrrrrr-ing” sound coming from the line.
“Ready?” the employee asked me.
I didn’t know which was scarier – taking that initial leap off the platform or trying to remember how to brake, so I wouldn’t end up with my teeth embedded in a tree on the other side of the park.
I took a deep breath and jumped. I remember thinking the swimming area below looked like something Barbie would use. I remember how loud the zipping sound was above my head. I remember feeling as if I had the world’s biggest atomic wedgie. And I remember how the ride picked up speed with every second.
Then I saw the two blue flags and reached up to slow myself down. I think I pressed my hand down a little too hard on the wire, however, because I felt my body jolt sideways. So I loosened my grip to compensate...and sped up. Thank goodness there was an employee waiting on the other platform to stop me. When he grabbed me around the waist and put an abrupt end to my journey, he permanently joined the ranks of "superhero" in my mind.
As Paul and I stood there, Nancy came zooming in on the line, and I do mean zooming. The employee dashed back to the edge of the platform to grab her.
When Nancy finally was unhooked, she walked over to me, put her left hand on her hip and shook her right fist at me. “So this was all your idea, huh?” she said, laughing.
We decided to forgo a second plunge, even for half-price. One death-defying leap was more than enough for us for one day.
“So, how did you like it?” I dared to ask my friends as we headed back to the car.
“It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected,” Nancy said.
Paul said he’d enjoyed it, then added, “But I’d have to advise men to wear long pants when they go on it. My shorts were so bunched up from the harness, I was embarrassed thinking about what kind of view the people down below might be seeing when they looked up!”
I was just happy I had survived long enough to cross another item off my bucket list.
Next on my list was riding “Untamed” at Canobie Lake Park. It’s a roller coaster that is 72 feet tall and has a 97-degree vertical drop.
Alas, 10 years have passed, and I still haven't done it. And lately I've been thinking..."Are you serious? Do you have a death wish? You're an old lady! You'll permanently injure some essential body part and wind up in traction!"
So I'm considering finally removing the roller coaster from my bucket list and replacing it with something more realistic.
Like learning how to knit a shawl.
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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