As I climbed into the world’s tiniest plane, I realized I was now less than 15 minutes away from falling to the earth at speeds over 100 MPH. I was calm, cool and collected. That’s probably because I purposefully failed to tell anyone I was going skydiving. I didn’t want anyone to try and dissuade me. (After the fact, my mom said, “You could have been killed, or worse!” Leave it to Bev to come up with something even more foreboding than death.)

The flight up took about ten minutes. My instructor was sound asleep with mouth agape after about 45 seconds. He obviously needed a nap. I was the third jump of his day, with nine more scheduled after me. At one point I turned to the pilot and pointed out I saw a rainbow. He said, “Where?” I yelled, “Look at the line of spittle coming out of the instructor’s mouth. When the light hits it just right you can see a rainbow in his drool.”

The only time I got a little antsy is when my tandem instructor suddenly woke up and flung the plane door open. I was fairly certain he was going to shove me out without realizing we weren’t harnessed together. Faster than you can say “GERONIMO!”, he clipped us together. All I kept thinking was, “Thank God I teach yoga, because if I weren’t so bendy, I wouldn’t be able to maneuver this weird half-squat formation.”

The instructor was yelling something in my ear, but all I could make out were a bunch of nonsensical vowels. Between the rushing wind and the airplane propellers, I couldn’t hear a thing. I thought he said, “You like lettuce?” So I yelled, “Yes, I like lettuce!” Next thing I know we were in a complete freefall. (Turns out he said, “Are you, like, ready?”)

Time stood still for about 45 seconds during the actual freefall. People asked me what it was like. To be honest, it’s like plunging in to an icy cold lake and sinking really fast. I felt like I was drowning on air. Once the instructor pulled the second ripcord, I quickly snapped back in to reality. The next four minutes were peaceful and calm as we floated to earth. My instructor said, “You’re doing a good job. I said, “I bet you say that to ALL the boys.”

He then pointed out approximately where we were going to land and how to steer the parachute. As we neared the landing zone, I could see my friend Hanu off in the distance clicking pictures. I saw several people on the ground near the drop area. I assumed they were there to catch us.

As we came in for the final landing, I heard the instructor yell, “HARD LEFT!” followed by “DUCK!” I had no idea what he was talking about until I saw a guy standing directly in front of me. I didn’t have time to react and nearly kicked him square in the chest. I then plopped to the ground with the instructor behind me. The parachute blew over us and we rolled over a couple times. I now know what a tumbleweed feels like. Turns out the guy I almost impaled was another photographer who was looking through his viewfinder. He was clearly oblivious to how fast we were coming down. There should have been a little sticker on his camera that said, “Objects in viewfinder are closer than they appear.”

Once I got my land legs back, I started walking towards Hanu. I turned to thank my instructor, but he was already headed back to the plane for his next jump. All in a days work, I guess. Hanu said, “How was it?!” I said, “Great, I would totally do that again! Now let’s go get a burger! I’m starved!.”

Apparently, the two bugs I swallowed on the way down only whetted my appetite.