Читать книгу Attention. Deficit. Disorder. - Brad Listi - Страница 30

Playa del Carmen was a good move. It was nice to be someplace warm, nice to be in the company of friends. It was like summer camp, with booze. It was a reunion in paradise. I felt rejuvenated for the first time in months. I felt alive. My spirits were high.

One afternoon while walking around town, I even went so far as to arrange for A.B., myself, and the rest of the groomsmen to go skydiving on the day of the wedding. I did it on impulse, convinced that it would be an appropriate thing to do on the morning of one’s nuptials and a good way for me to spend some of my money.

It could therefore be argued that I equated marriage with spending lots of money and plummeting through the earth’s atmosphere at terminal velocity.

terminal velocity n.

The constant maximum velocity reached by a body falling through the atmosphere under the attraction of gravity.

The magnitude of terminal velocity depends upon the weight of the falling body. Heavy objects tend to fall faster than lighter objects, as air resistance is directly proportional to the plummeting body’s velocity squared.

A.B. was a small guy. He weighed about 145 pounds.

I weighed 175.

A typical skydiver plummets through the earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about 120 miles per hour.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest speed ever reached by a plummeting skydiver was 325.67 miles per hour. The record was set by Frenchman Michael Brooke at the Millennium Speed Skydiving Competition over Gap, France, on September 19, 1999.

parachute n.

1 An apparatus used to retard free fall from an aircraft, consisting of a light, usually hemispherical canopy attached by cords to a harness and worn or stored folded until deployed in descent.

2 Any of various similar unpowered devices that are used for retarding free-speeding or free-falling motion.

Another interesting fact: Shortly after I arranged for A.B. and his groomsmen to go skydiving, I learned that Jenny and her bridesmaids had arranged to go scuba diving that very same morning. While the groom and his groomsmen would be ten thousand feet above sea level, preparing to plummet through the earth’s atmosphere at terminal velocity, Jenny and her bridesmaids would be fifty feet under, submerged in the crystalline waters just off of Isla Mujeres.