by Rob Gunther
So you wake up on that big day and you and your friends have to drive way out of the city to some rinky-dink little airport somewhere in the country. That tiny old plane that you imagined is even more dilapidated in real life. Is that really a canvas roof? What is this, pedal-powered? But don’t get too excited, because you all have to sit through some five-hour class before you get to pile into that death trap. The five-hour class is all about safety, how to jump, how to land, and please sign this waiver so that, if you die, our skydiving company won’t get shut down and we can still collect money from people who want to skydive in the future, because it’s not our fault, it’s your fault, you signed the waiver, you jumped out of an airplane, idiot.
And then it’s time to go. But let’s just all wait a second, just an hour or two, or four. The wind’s not right. We’re all just going to wait for some better wind. Really? Wouldn’t it be safer to just wait for a different day with perfect wind? Yeah, but no, because the company’s booked for the next month, and there are no refunds, and everybody else’s months are booked solid from here on out, so the wind should be OK. They’ve done skydiving in wind like this, yeah, plenty of skydiving in wind like this.
The plane can only fit half of the group, and everybody draws straws to see who goes first. And you’re in the second group. So you have to sit around and watch everybody go up first. Oh, and you’re not even jumping, you’re attached to some instructor. He gets the parachute. You just get some clips so you’re attached to his chest. What happens if the clips break? Don’t worry, each clip can hold up to four hundred pounds, and there are four clips. But what happens if the strap that the clip is attached to rips off the clip? Just shut up and get on the plane.
What do you mean get on the plane? I thought you said we had to split into two groups? Yeah, but we spent so much time waiting for that wind to get better that we’re all running late, ane we don’t have all day, and sure, you guys’ll fit. You’ll be fine. We’ve got more skydiving groups scheduled and everybody’s waiting. Just come on man, hop on.
And that’s it. You didn’t want to chicken out, but the fear is completely paralyzing. You’re stuck. All of your friends try really hard to snap you out of it, but you’re firm in your commitment not to get on that plane. And your friends try to wave you over. Even as the plane starts taxiing, they all have that look on their face like, really? You’re really not coming?
And you want to move. Just get on the plane. This is going to haunt you forever. And you sit there and watch as the plane picks up speed and takes off. It starts flying higher and higher, but then it starts to dip. It looks like it’s struggling. It’s definitely too heavy. The plane can’t take it. It sputters, spins out of control, and crashes. You run to the wreckage to see if anybody is still alive. It wasn’t that high up. They could’ve survived it. But just as you start to run, the plane explodes, a huge fireball. You can feel the heat.
At the memorial service you’re standing around the wreaths and the framed pictures of all of your friends. Everybody’s bawling and blowing their noses and they come up to pay their respects and when they get to you they pause, they say, “Didn’t you go skydiving also?” And you say, “Yeah, I went, but I … I … I didn’t get on the plane.”
“Why didn’t you get on the plane?”
“I don’t know, I guess I chickened out. I really had a tough time with …”
“What do you mean you chickened out? Were you worried that the plane was too full? Because that’s why the plane crashed, right? Too full?”
“Maybe. There were a lot of things going through my head at the moment. I …”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you try harder to get them to split up into two groups? Why didn’t you insist?”
“I couldn’t have thought … I was just … I …”
“This is your fault! All of your friends are dead and it’s all your fault!”
And that person would start crying even harder than before, and you’d just hang your head in shame, waiting for that exact conversation to repeat itself over and over again, the line of people stretching around the block, all of them wondering why you didn’t speak up, didn’t try to convince everyone that the plane was too heavy to carry the whole group.
How would you live with all of that guilt? How would anybody ever want to be friends with you ever again? Nope, there’s no way that I’m ever going skydiving. Never. And I never even want to be friends with anybody who ever wants to go skydiving. So never ask me. Because I’ll hang up the phone midsentence and I’ll delete your number from my contacts. And that will be it. It’ll be like I never knew you in the first place.
I insist
If you want the best in life, you have to demand it. You have to insist. Most people are too timid. They make these faces with worried expressions, they start whining, “Well, you see … it’s … it’s just that … it’s just that I don’t want to come across as pushy. I don’t want to impose.” And I’m glad that most people are like this, because it leaves more room for people like me to insist even louder. Their worried expressions crinkle up even more, and ultimately they’ll cave just to get me off of their backs.
You’re not going to go anywhere in life without insisting. Whenever I go out to eat, I order my meal just like everybody else. But when I see the waiter coming over with my food, I automatically start shaking my head in disappointment, before I even get a chance to look at the dish. It doesn’t matter if it’s good. Everything can be better. Every chef could take just a little bit more time holding each plate to a higher standard. And that’s what I want. I want the head chef to personally remake my meal better than before. Much better. The chef’s not going to do that unless you reject the first attempt. Unless you mean business. Unless you insist.
But I’m not just talking about sit-down restaurants. I’m talking any place you can get food. Fast food places. McDonald’s. I’ll order a Big Mac meal, and when the cashier hands me the bag, I don’t step to the side, never mind the long line of people behind me. I wait until the next person assumes I’m done and starts to order, and then I hold my hand up. I tell them to wait a second.
I insist.
And then in front of everybody I start going through the bag. I take out the Big Mac, the fries, all of the napkins, everything. Then I open up the Big Mac box. I take the top bun off. I start running my finger through the shredded lettuce, poking around at each layer. I turn the fry box upside town and inspect each potato. I even take the lid off of the Coke and spin my fingers around once or twice.
“Not so fast,” I tell the cashier. At this point, the people behind me switch to other lines because they know I mean business. And I like it better this way. I hate feeling rushed. The cashier asks me what the problem is. In all honesty, there’s probably nothing wrong. But like I said before, there’s always room for improvement. When I spend money somewhere, I need to know I’m getting the very best for my dollar. I like to imagine I’m insisting on the best.
So I complain that the burger isn’t hot enough, the lettuce isn’t crisp enough, the sauce isn’t secret enough. I point at the fries. There’ are usually at least one or two small, burnt pieces of potato in there somewhere. If there aren’t, I’ll complain that the fries look too greasy. Or that there’s not enough salt. And this Coke, when was the last time the syrup’s been changed? Today? Really? Well, did they clean out the syrup hose or did they just change the bag of syrup? What do you mean you don’t know?
And when they finally redo my meal, I insist they put those “made fresh” stickers on all of my items, indicating to me, to the whole world, that I’m getting the very freshest, that I’ve demanded quality. If they don’t put that sticker on, I make them start all over again. How do I know they didn’t just repackage the same sandwich? Of course they didn’t. My dissection was so thorough they wouldn’t have been able to. But I’ll still say it.
And my philosophy extends beyond food. Car washes are the best. First of all, I refus
e to get out of the car when it goes through the machine. I remember when I was a little kid, you always got to stay inside. But now it’s always, get out, walk through the side. So I insist on staying in. It’s unlikely anybody’s up for an argument, so they’ll just say whatever and let me go through. It’s so cool. The nozzles spray onto the windows. And then the big strips of cleaning fabric start going up and down on the windshield. It’s exciting.
Afterward, those guys at the end start polishing the whole thing down with towels. And then when they finish, they stand around with their hands out for a tip.
And that’s when I start really insisting.
I insist the machine isn’t running properly, and my car usually comes out much cleaner. I demand to speak to the manager, to see the machine’s permits, asking when the last time this whole place has been serviced. I always get another run through. Every time. These guys don’t want you hanging around complaining all day, insisting. They’ve got a long line of cars waiting to go through. You just insist long enough and you get another ride. It’s great.
I like to go in the backseat this time and pretend I’m prisoner on a pirate ship, and there’s a storm, but I have this plan to take control of the ship while the crew is busy battling the weather. And then, right as the car emerges from the carwash, I like to fight my way to the driver’s seat and pretend that I steered the ship straight out of the storm. I get out of the car and imagine all of the people wiping down the car are the pirates, and they’ve accepted me as their new captain. I start insisting that they check for barnacles under the hood. And they look at me funny because it’s just an imaginary story, all in my head, but whatever, I don’t care if anybody’s staring at me. I’m having a great time. The pirate ship scenario is so much fun, and I’m serious here, pop open the hood and scrub. I’m dead serious, matey. I insist.
Making amends with Andre
Andre sent me a text last week saying he felt bad about how things had ended, that he wanted to meet up and maybe restart the friendship and let bygones be bygones.
That son of a bitch.
Now he’s going to go around to everyone and show off the text message. People will say stuff like, “Wow, Andre, you’re a really big person, you know that?”
And he’ll kind of just look at them, not saying anything out loud. Maybe he’ll give a really fake shrug, a nonverbal response that says without saying it, “Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
I’m such an idiot. I just ignored the message without remembering that on the iPhone it shows up on the messages screen as saying, “delivered,” or, “read.” So he’s probably going around to everyone, and while he’s showing everyone that he’s trying to make amends, he’ll also be letting them know that I’m ignoring him, that I purposefully saw, read, and then didn’t respond to his message.
And let me tell you, this is all such bullshit. Everybody knows I’m the bigger person. And whatever, if you don’t think I’m the biggest person, I mean, that’s a different argument. I think we can all agree I’m definitely a bigger person than Andre. I never responded to his text, because I knew he was full of it. I could just tell. I’d text something like, “Sure man, no hard feelings.”
Then he’d probably respond with something like, “So yeah, I’m thinking about hosting a picnic this Saturday and I was hoping you could swing by. Any chance you could be in charge of picking up some potato salad on the way there?”
Again, this might seem like a harmless request, but we have such a loaded history. I’m still so pissed off about that picnic. It was going to be so much fun. I had to get rid of like ten friends that day. I can’t let him get any closer.
But at the same time, the idea of him walking around telling people that I carry grudges, or that I’m standoffish, or that I should consider going to a therapist, that it’s done wonders for him, that he could refer me to his guy, that it doesn’t matter if I don’t have insurance, that the guy will work with me on my budget … fucking Andre. I can’t. I just can’t give him that satisfaction.
But I couldn’t think of what to do or how to get out of this. A couple more days passed before I thought of the perfect solution. I texted Andre back saying, “Sorry, wrong number.”
And he texted back, “Rob?”
And I wrote, “No man, wrong number.”
And then he wrote back something like, “OK, sorry.”
Fucking Andre. That guy always has to have the last word. Every single time. So I wrote back, “NP.” You know, for “no problem.”
And then he wrote, “NP?” Jesus Christ, everybody knows what NP means. He just has to have the last word.
I went to the AT&T store and told them I wanted a whole new account, new number, everything. Right before the clerk activated the switch, I sent Andre one last text message: “No problem,” and then told the clerk “Now! Switch it!”
And the clerk was like, “Well, I mean, it’s not instantaneous. But it should only take a second. Let’s see …”
Incompetent clerks. Only a second. It was like five minutes. And of course Andre texted back, “Oh, OK.” Why does he always have to respond? At what point are you just like, fine, I don’t care about having the last word? And he thinks he’s the bigger person? What kind of a bigger person keeps texting, just for the sake of always responding last?
Anyway, I got my new phone number and waited a couple of days. Then I sent Andre a text message. “Hey Andre. It’s been a while. Anyway, I just feel like I don’t like how we left things, and maybe we should just bury the hatchet and start fresh.”
And he texted back, “Who is this?”
I wrote, “It’s Rob G. Some guy stole my phone a while back, and I had to get a new number.”
He wrote. “NP. That’s big of you. Yeah, apology accepted. We’re cool.”
I’m just like, thinking to myself, did I apologize? I didn’t apologize. I didn’t say sorry. And who is he to tell me that my text was big? Is he the dispenser of bigness? Like he’s bigger than me and can somehow award me with a little bit of his infinite supply of big? And what, now this guy’s going to go around and show everybody that text message and tell everyone that I apologized? What do I have to be sorry about? That manipulative jerk. It was an olive branch if anything. And besides, he messaged me first. I should have responded, “Apology accepted.” That way I could have been the bigger person while at the same time putting him in his place. And what’s with that NP business? Did he just start using NP when I told him about from my other phone? Or did he somehow catch on to my plan? What a psycho. Seriously, like doesn’t this guy have anything better to do? And now what, we’re friends again? I can’t believe I got played like that.
Fucking Andre.
Gardener’s revenge
I got so sick of taking care of my garden. Those ungrateful plants. Day after day I had to walk outside and turn the hose on. And they were never happy to see me, always sagging down, so dramatic, like a whole night without water had really taken it out of them. It would be like me pretending to be dying in bed every morning until somebody came in and gave me breakfast. Do you know how many times anybody’s done that for me? Zero times.
But I had to do it for these plants every day. I would get out there and as soon as the hose started and the water hit the plants, all of these mosquitoes, thousands of them, they’d get woken up by the water and turn into this cloud of pests that would immediately attack. I’d try to shoo them away, but it was futile. Even if I were to constantly rub both of my arms, I’d still always miss three or four mosquitoes.
Hey plants, why are you always letting the mosquitoes hang out anyway? It’s like, what’s my daily reward for feeding you, getting a million bug bites?
So finally I had enough. I let a day go by where I didn’t go outside. Take that, plants. Maybe you can get your stupid mosquito friends to go find you some water. But it rained that day. And it poured down, the plants all stood up really straight, straight up to the sky as if to say, “Thank you
mother Earth for feeding us!” and then the wind kept blowing them so they were all facing me from the kitchen window, taunting me, going, “Ha! We don’t need you Rob, you and your pathetic hose, you loser.”
I thought to myself, drink up boys. Every farmer knows the rain’s got to stop eventually. But it rained that whole week. Sheets of rain. How else can you describe a heavy rain? It’s always in sheets. Or in buckets. You never hear any interesting new ways of describing a storm. Nobody ever says anything cool, like a five-alarm rain. No, it’s always five-alarm chili. Why not a five-alarm rain?
Finally the rain stopped. I woke up on that first dry day and pressed my face and hands against the window. Are they dead yet? I hoped and wished that I’d gaze upon empty, dried out husks, but they were fine. They looked better than ever. And the wind was moving in such a way that it looked like they were all dancing. I could hear them singing, taunting me, “You idiot! It’s been raining for a week straight. The ground’s supersaturated. We’ve got plenty to drink. Come out here and have some water. There’s enough to go around! Hahaha!”
I was so pissed. But I knew I just needed to be patient. Drought’s coming boys, drought’s right around the corner.
And sure enough, one day turned into two days and four days later, not a single drop of rain. Those plants started looking a little thirstier than usual. On day five I walked outside. The garden tried it’s best to act like nothing was wrong, but it was obvious what was going down. Those bugs were starting to make holes in all of the dried-out leaves. Flowers were wilting. None of the plants were standing up straight. I could tell some of the smaller plants wanted to cave, to apologize to me and beg for water, but the bigger ones remained defiant. “We don’t need you!” they cried out. “There’ll be more rain! You’ll see!”