Terror Somewhere High Up Over Namibia

Shitting my pants in a confined space filled mostly with strangers was not a decision I ever thought I’d make. At least not sober or until I was on the far-side of 90. But there I was staring at my eight unsuspecting victims, only one of whom had made any sort of commitment to me (and which now seemed quite tenuous).

Not twenty minutes before I was fine. A little groggy due to the early hour, but I was laughing and joking and inquisitive about the whole process. But that was before we were wrenched up off the ground in the middle of fuck knows where or how to spell it.

That was also before I realized the true extent of my fear of heights and flying and having my guts smeared across a rather picturesque field of soft green grasses that I would enjoy looking down upon right now if I wasn’t focused so intently on keeping my sphincter snapped shut. The sheer panic I felt while trapped inside various fuselages over the years should have been a big red flashing don’t do it sign, but I never thought to extrapolate my fear to include hot air balloons.

Hot air balloons are pretty. They’re colorful. They’re the picture of serenity. If Jazzy scooters weren’t so darn user-friendly, hot air balloons could be the official conveyance of grandmothers everywhere. They are just that docile.

That is until you hear the screeching, scratching, scraping sound of your basket as it slides over shards of sharp rock during liftoff. And then you think back to how you saw this same crew driving to the launch site yesterday morning and so you’ve got to figure they’ve been grating the bottom of this thing like parmesan on a daily basis for a good many years.

Do they take weekends off? Do they ever perform maintenance? And has anyone noticed this thing is made of wicker? Last I checked, wicker was not the brawniest of Earth’s materials. Nobody puts convicted serial killers in prison cells made of wicker. No. In fact, leaving a wicker chair out in the elements during just one Ohio winter guarantees that the first person to sit on it in spring lands flat on their ass. Somehow I thought I might like this?