The monkey made me do it

Fear of AT&T

This is the tale of the day I discovered that I am not, in fact, invincible. Snakes, spiders, tight spaces, and heights had never bothered me in the past. My parents were often left fearing for my life when I ran off as a child, knowing that in seconds I could be scaling a tree or jumping off a pier into the ocean.

In college (the Texas version), I was involved with roughly a ba-zillion clubs and activities. I volunteered to walk stray dogs at the animal shelter, I served breakfast to the homeless under an overpass downtown, I ran a group that visited strangers at a local retirement home and regularly convinced Alzheimer's patients to do crafts (with even more regular cries of "Dangit, she's eating the paint again!"). As a result of this, many weekends were taken up by leadership training and retreats where we were all supposed to bond and work together and share our s'mores. Yeah, me and a group of ex-cheerleaders in the woods. I sat in the back a lot and drew rude things on my notes.

The trip that stands out in my mind was led by a particularly peppy fella named Howard. Howard was an outdoorsy peppy guy (the worst kind, as they can take an experience with nature and fast-forward it and color it with extra-bright, high-pitched cheers of death), and I'd made the mistake of "hiking" with him once before. He'd run full-bore up the small mountain we'd chosen while I did my leisurely hike, then ran full-bore back down and up again before I reached the top. It was like a live Speedy Gonsalez cartoon, complete with the trail of dust marking his progress up and down and up and down the trail. For this particular trip, he decided that our group of 20 would do a ropes course out in the middle of the Texas wilderness. I'd seen ropes courses on TV before, and was anticipating a little bit of climbing, some falling backwards into a group of waiting arms... nothing too extreme, right?

The course that we went to was hours away from any city and looked to be run by just a couple of redneck guys. They outfitted us with climbing harnesses and helmets, and waited patiently while Howard launched into the first of many pep talks we'd be tortured by that day. At least, I think they were pep talks, he could have been speaking Swahili for as much attention as I gave him. I was looking at the pretty trees. mmm, trees.

The first challenge was one that I'd seen on TV. Two long ropes were strung between two poles. One was about 10 feet off the ground, with the other 10 feet directly above it. There were a few shorter ropes dangling down from the upper one. We climbed up to a platform on one end and, after hooking in our harnesses, inched down the rope using the shorter ropes for support. Not bad, I did just fine. We climbed a rock wall (cake) and walked a thin bridge over a valley (also cake) and swung like Tarzan from a tree (vanilla sponge cake). Then came the telephone pole. It was almost 30 feet tall, with the original metal L-shaped climbing hooks still intact. There was a trapeze hanging equal with it about 6-7 feet away. The trick was to climb the pole, stand unsupported on the 1-foot-diameter top, and then leap to the trapeze and swing for a while before they slowly lowered you down by your harness. A few people got up and jumped without incident before it was my turn, so I thought nothing of grabbing the metal grips and starting up the pole. I hummed a little climbing song to myself as I worked my way up, only silent when I realized that the little grips stopped about 2 feet from the top of the pole. Undeterred, I stepped on the highest one and shimmied myself up to the top of the pole, getting one foot on top and starting to pull myself into standing position.

Then it hit me. I realized that I was close to standing on the teensy top of a 30-foot telephone pole with nothing around me but a swinging trapeze that seemed miles away. The fear was like a solid thing, it slammed into me with a force that I could feel all throughout my body. I couldn't stand up, my eyes glazed over and my body started shaking uncontrollably. Howard noticed that the climbing/leaping movement had ceased and immediately began a supportive cheer amongst my fellow happy ropers. I calculated the number of them I could hit if I threw myself off the pole and managed to undo my harness. It wasn't enough (is it ever?) so I verrrry slowly took my foot back down from the top of the pole and made my excruciating way back down. Since then I've only felt a couple of mild aftershocks, and only in situations where I'm up very high and with nothing to grab on to. So the invincibility thing might just have a slight setback, is all.

posted by LadyJay @ 9:14 AM