Would you rather go bungee jumping or skydiving?

I’d like to do both. I really want to go skydiving, but it’s so bloody expensive. You have to take a training class and the first few times you jump, you have a stranger strapped to you in a way that you normally don’t want strangers strapped to you. I enjoy my personal space far too much. However, I’d totally do it, if I could afford it. Skydiving, like new tattoos and another trip to Europe, never seems to make it to the top of the financial priorities list.

Bungee jumping, on the other hand, doesn’t have nearly the safety regulations that skydiving does. Anyone can bungee jump. All you need is a high place and a bungee. That’s part of its charm, but also what makes it terrifying. There’s a very real possibility that you could get severely injured or dead while bungee jumping with someone who hasn’t a clue what they’re doing. That danger makes it all the more enticing and horrifying.

The closest I’ve come to skydiving is flying in a commercial aircraft. I love flying. I love that moment on takeoff when the G-forces plaster your head to the seat and your belly does a little flip-flop. I think of it as a very expensive and underwhelming amusement park ride. Unfortunately, that moment on takeoff is the most interesting part of flying. The rest of the flight is dismally boring. I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had to dive out of a commercial aircraft with a parachute on the way to Michigan.They don’t give you parachutes on commercial airlines anyway, just a stupid seat cushion. Cheapskates.

The closest I’ve come to bungee jumping is that ride they sometimes have at amusement parks where they strap you into a harness and pull you way up into the sky. You lie there, face down, staring at concrete, and you have to pull your own release cord like a parachute. Once you do, you free fall towards the concrete until a wire mercifully tugs on your harness right before you faceplant. Then you go swinging back and forth over the suckers at the amusement park riding the teacups. The best part of that ride is right after you pull the release cord and before you start barreling down to die. There is a micro-second in there where you are totally weightless, suspended high up in the air by absolutely nothing like Wile E. Coyote. There is a micro-second where gravity is slacking and hasn’t pulled you down to the ground yet. That is the best feeling in the world. I’ve done it twice. The second time wasn’t nearly as good since I knew what to expect.

Someday, if I ever win the lottery without ever buying a ticket, I will jump out of a plane. I bet skydiving has that micro-second of gravity slacking, too. Whenever I’m in a plane, I look out the tiny portal at the ground passing by and think what it would be like to fly down towards it in a parachute. It sounds great to me, provided that I don’t have a stranger strapped to my back and the parachute actually works.