The two guys had been arguing ever since we had taken off in the small, Cessna airplane. The plane had no door, and I was afraid their argument would become a physical one, and one of them might fall out the space that a sliding door once occupied. 

Sure enough, a few minutes later, they began shoving each other, and they both fell outside the door. 

The pilot smiled. 

“Gotcha,” he said. 

It was my first day of skydiving, and the veterans had a little fun with me. 

Why skydive? Well, I had asked myself what was the scariest thing in life I could do and still have a relatively good chance of living. It was part male boasting and part excitement that got me to agree to go skydiving with a friend of mine from work. 

He, too, had never skydived, and we were nervous wrecks the day we drove to the cowfields near the Everglades. The fields were perfect places for small planes to take off and for skydivers to land. 

I was shocked to learn that we’d be skydiving by the end of the day. I thought for sure that we’d have to take a weekend of classes and then come back the next week before making the actual jump. 

But that was not to be the case. We were to take classes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., then jump at 4 p.m. Presto! We’d be skydivers. 

The class was divided into three main parts: 1) How to open your chute and 2) How to fall and 3) What to do if things went wrong. 

Opening your chute was the easy part. You simply pull the rip cord handle, and out the chute came. It’s funny that even to this day, I remember the instructor telling us not to let go of the rip cord handle once we pulled it, because if we did, we’d have to pay him $15 for it. 

Throughout the day’s session, I kept telling myself, “Don’t let go of the ripcord, don’t let go of the ripcord.” Yep, I had no worries of impending death. The $15 is what bothered me. 

Learning about falling also was easy. You were to arch your back, as if you were trying to do a belly-flop into a pool. If you didn’t arch your back, you’d have a good chance of spinning wildly and possibly tangling your chute when it came out. 

As for learning about what to do in a problem, that was a little harder. Some tangles could be undone, we were taught. Others could not, and with those, we were to pull out our reserve chute. Of course, if the reserve chute didn’t work, well, I wouldn’t have to worry about paying the $15. 

Throughout the class, I was feeling rather manly and macho. I really wasn’t afraid and was looking forward to the jump. But when they sat me in the doorway of the plane, a knot formed in my stomach. 

As the plane took off and the fenced-in cowfield began to look like blocks on a checkerboard, I knew stark fear. Worse, they had me sitting on the edge of the door, with my knees and legs hanging out. Real fear. 

The two guys pretending to argue didn’t help me either. Watching my partner not fall correctly and getting a rope burn when the chute came out also didn’t bolster my confidence. 

The absolute worst part of the jump, though, came when I had to quite literally walk under the wing, standing on a little bar as the plane flew at 90 mph at what seemed like 50 miles high in the air. 

And then I let go. 

As I arched my back and counted to five, all I remember was being blinded because I had looked directly in the sun. When I reached the count of five, I pulled my ripcord and felt the gentle tug of my chute opening. 

It was a wonderful feeling. A few minutes later, I landed gently, standing up as I landed, only 10 feet from the target. 

And the best part of the whole jump? 

I didn’t have to pay the $15.