Safety Tip #1: Don’t Lie About Your Weight When You Go Bungee Jumping

Someone years ago invited me to go bungee jumping and for some reason I said yes. I will come up with some lame excuse to get out of it closer to the actual date, I thought. But, then everyone starting talking about it and I realized one day—damn I have to do this. 

I’m scared of heights and I am not very into doing things where I could die. I’ve never gone hot air ballooning, sky diving, scuba diving, snow skiing, skateboarding, mountain biking, surfing—even competitive soduko, that can be very dangerous from what I’ve heard. I have never been on a motorcycle and I stay out of the ocean if at all possible. When I walk at night my wife makes me wear a yellow reflective vest. People might think I’m boring, but the way I look at it, I’m still alive! 

So, bungee jumping is something I wouldn’t normally ever agree to, but the power of peer pressure is hard to say no to. So, before I realized it, I was in a car headed to Angels Camp, CA to jump off an 80-ft. bridge with a bungee cord attached to my feet. There was a group of 10 people there ready to jump when we got to the bridge. The bungee people gave us a speech about safety and then they asked us about our weight. At that time, I weighed 300-plus lbs., but because I am vane I told them 265. Big mistake! 

When I finally jumped, I bounced a lot more than anyone else! The first rebound raced me back up to the bridge and I thought-I am going to pancake myself under this bridge. I was bouncing back toward the bridge so violently that I actually almost slingshot myself above the railing of the bridge on the other side. The other bungee jumpers were looking at me in shock while a few of them actually laughed. 

I must have looked like a big Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon flying around on a bungee cord. Later I found out, one of the operators of the bungee jumping company asked his assistant, “What did he tell us his weight was?”--knowing full well that had I obviously reported something considerably less. Today it is an amusing anecdote, but at the time it was a scary moment. 

Lesson: It’s never good to lie about your age or your weight, because you never know how it can back and bite you right on the ass!

More upcoming articles will offer great life advice, such as:

Don’t Jump in a Water Hazard at a Golf Course (Duck Poo!)

 
Don’t Eat From a Taco Stand in that Smells Like Death

Don’t Go to Candlestick Park Wearing an LA Dodgers Jersey

Don’t Ask a Drunk Cougar Her Age