There's no better way to start a day than to accidentally punch your girlfriend in the face when she tries to wake you up.
We left early in the morning to go to another town in Idaho where there would be zip-lining (which I had never done before), and as soon as we arrived, I found that I had been placed in a sitcom--the kind where several characters that don't go together are locked in one room. Funny for the audience, not for them.
First on the character list was the country jock who worked there. He was loud, opinionated, and all about anything pertaining to himself. My first experience with him was when he was arguing with a girl on the phone. In the middle of the conversation, he turns to me and loudly says, "That's what ya get fer marryin' a blonde."
Ah, yes. Life lessons from CJ (Country Jock).
Next was the jock jock who also worked there. Big, bulky, and slow speech. The first thing he said to me was a halfhearted grunt. The model employee, JJ.
Then there was my girlfriend's mom who is an eternal ray of sunshine (ERS, if you so desire).
There was also Mr. Jokester (MJ). Lanky, older, and always equipped with a "dad joke" for any situation. As soon as he walked in the building, he saw me putting on my harness and said, "It's only for halfway." His family laughed, but I just looked at him. Excuse me? Who are you, and what does that even mean?
And finally, there was me. The quiet observer who was using this experience as play time.
The five of us (plus many others) piled in a trailer and were escorted to the first zip-line sight. As soon as we sat down, MJ exclaimed, "Put your luggage in the overhead compartment..." followed by a polite laugh from the crowd. And he doesn't even get paid for his stand-up, folks! The first zip-line was basically a warm-up for everyone, and the second was the one where the workers tried to get us to break the spin record. Upon hearing from JJ that I was not getting my money's worth if I didn't spin, I decided to go for the record, 35. My girlfriend got 26 spins, and I got 25...and a fourth.
"Well, yeah!" I said, "It's cause Sarah's smaller."
"Actually, you go faster if you're bigger," one of the workers energetically corrected me.
"And you're bigger," CJ added for good measure--in case I wasn't listening.
ERS went after me, but, due to lack of speed, she stopped just by the hill. CJ took no time to grab a rope attached to the zip-line and ran towards the edge of the hill. What he was trying to do, I'll never, to this day, understand. With the rope in his hand, he jumped off, but ERS had started to drift backwards. The rope whipped back, and he fell into the brush below.
"My Tarzan weren't as cool as I thought," he shouted.
Once he climbed back up the hill, he attached his harness to the wire and pulled himself out to ERS, who was laughing nervously by this point. He reached her in a short amount of time, but when he arrived, he (somehow) got his carabiner stuck in ERS' carabiner.
"[CJ]" the other worker called out, "Bring her back?"
"We're carabinered!"
"Bring her over!"
"We're carabinered!"
After the other worker brought the rope around and pulled Tarzan to safety, she un-carabinered them, and ERS stepped off the hill with another nervous laugh.
There was one more smaller zip-line, and by the time I had gone, I stepped to the side and waited for the rest of Sarah's family to make it across. At this end, CJ and JJ were standing, waiting to help brake the participants' landing while talking to each other. I found myself in the middle of their conversation, only glad that I had missed as much of it as I could.
"So, I'm putting the dumb blonde on my list," CJ said as he scratched his inner thigh.
"Which list? The half-list?"
"But I don't care. She's hot, and that's all that matters."
I turned to Sarah.
"Isn't that guy married?"
"Him?" she answered, "Are you kidding?"
Finally, we arrived at the fourth and final zip-line where two could go at once and race on separate lines. Sarah and I were first, and as soon as I stepped up, one of the girl workers cleared her throat.
"You need to be on the left."
"Oh, okay," I said.
"It's just that...the right line is faster, and we're giving her a chance--"
"Heavier ones go on the left," JJ said without a pause.
"Oh, good," CJ said to me as he stepped up to the platform, "You're on the left. You tell 'im that the bigger ones go on the left?"
I get it, CJ. I get it.
As CJ and JJ traveled the zip-line to prepare to brake us on the other side, Sarah and I waited on our platforms--I was on the left side. I was on the left. In the awkward silence while we were waiting, the girl worker turned to me and asked,
"So, are you from here?"
"No, ma'am, I'm from Texas."
"Oh..."
Right before I was about to race, the girl handed me a water bottle and said, "Here. This is [CJ]'s water. He didn't want to carry it."
Then, Sarah and I raced (with a water bottle in my hand). I got there first (because I was fiercely kicking in the air and gaining speed), but CJ didn't brake Sarah as hard, and she went farther across the final hill.
"Dude, she won," CJ laughed.
"Then you don't get your water bottle," I said as I tried to throw it past him (unfortunately, he caught it).
"She totally won," JJ added, "Cause you were flailing."
"I was kicking," I said.
"You were flailing," CJ laughed.
"Flailing don't do nothin'. You could go down an endless zip-line 'n flail to your heart's content, and ya wouldn't get there no faster."
I left in the middle of the sentence and congratulated Sarah on her "win."
"Whoa! PDA!" CJ shouted.
"I can show you more if you like!" I shouted back, then said to Sarah, "Cause you never get any and don't know what it looks like."
"Be nice," Sarah said as she shushed me.
Finally, we were back in the trailer, and MJ made a joke my mind probably erased from my memory. When we started moving, CJ started talking, to my great surprise.
"Make sure and buckle--the blonde is driving."
"Is that your wife?" someone asked.
"No, the other blonde is my wife. This one is only half stupid. You'll recognize the stupid one when you see her."
"She's the one who answers, 'What?' to every question," JJ added, "Just call her 'What' and she'll respond, 'What?'"
The two laughed, and someone asked about their marriage.
"She doesn't like it when I call her my wife, though," CJ said, "I don't know why. Maybe it's cause I'm too good for her."
"That's not it," I said.
"So he's a guy that doesn't date and just calls a co-worker his wife?" Sarah asked.
Bingo.
If you haven't learned at least one life lesson from CJ, then just learn to call girls "stupid" to their face. As for me, I was treating this little adventure like an episode of Lost. I was studying every one of the characters with whom I might possibly have had to spend a couple years of my life.
The good news? I didn't have to.
The better news? Golden Corral fixes everything.
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