A Contouring Fail and Zip Line Zombies

The older I get, the more effort it takes to not look homeless.  Have you heard of contouring?  I just assumed it was a Kardashian trend, and while the magazined makeup results looked flawless and magical in Kardashianland, I was pretty certain that kind of stuff was completely unattainable for me.  However a friend of mine recently implemented and mastered the technique and she swore up and down that I could do it too.

This morning, bolstered by my friend’s success and confidence as well as a plethora of YouTube videos, I decided to give it a whirl.  It was magical alright, just not in the sunshine and rainbows kind of way. 

Not everyone can fail at something so thoroughly, but I, ladies and gentlemen, I can, and I did.   I didn’t know I could look quite so much like a mastiff.  It was really quite impressive.  I bet you think I’m about to post a picture, don’t you?  Yeah.  No thanks.  I’d rather not be recruited for that special effects show on the Syfy channel about makeup artists.  Face Off I think it’s called and I totally would’ve won, if I’d been brave enough to share my startling skills with the world.  Alas, I chose to hide my considerable talents away, for safe keeping.  A girl must always have a backup plan for her current career, and mastiff impersonation is now mine.

I bucket listed pretty hard today.  I recovered from my makeup faux pas and went on to have a spectacular day.  I lived today.   Fully, thoroughly, heart beating out of my chest, sweat dripping down my glasses, LIVED.   I climbed up rusted spiral stair cases, and flung myself willingly from towers.  Where I live they call this zip lining.  It’s horrible.  You should never do this, but I did, and I lived.  My bravest friend and I survived two zip lines and a rope course and made some great memories in the process.

I feared the zip lines most, because of my ogre princess stature.  I figured they’d size me up and throw in a few extra harnesses just to be safe.  They didn’t.  In fact, there was minimal eye contact from the zip line workers, and not a drop of enthusiasm.  It was actually quite unnerving.  I mean I get it.  I’m not impressed by surgical wounds because I see and work inside them daily.  Still, I can recognize that the patient I’m working on is completely freaked out by their mundane flesh wound, and I attempt to have some empathy and put their fears to rest by distracting or teaching or encouraging them.  The guys working the zip lines today were absolutely vacant.  I got as much interaction from them as I would’ve gotten from a pamphlet at the doctor’s office.

“Hold this.”

“Step here.”

“Follow me.”  Said the Zip Line Zombie, immediately jogging up several rickety flights of spiral stairs, two at a time leaving me, the admitted mouth breather to gallop awkwardly after him, trying to hide my lack of stamina and the sheer terror in my eyes.  I’ve never been more thankful to have a friend with me.  I couldn’t have done it alone.

At the top, through heaving breaths, I attempted to draw the silent worker out of his glazed shell, by making a relevant but stupid joke about bad life choices.  He didn’t even flinch, just pointed and kept up the monosyllabic rhetoric.

“Step” he commanded, pointing, and my friend climbed up the platform.  He hooked her harness up to the zip line and after one or two more gestured instructions, she flew away.  I watched, with my heart in my throat as she neared the next platform at break neck speed, and I exhaled finally when she stood up on it and waved.  She survived!  Thank God!

But would I?  I’m at least twice her size and come with a substantial number of zip line complications: I’m too tall for starters, which puts my head at increased risk of zip line burn, and I have extra long hair by which I could easily be strangled.  I’m also large, and they didn’t give me any backup harnesses in case I out-harness the piddly one the zombies hastily fitted me with downstairs.  Is that wise?  Also, did anyone else notice the bit of rusted banister on the way up that spiral staircase that had been sawed off?  If you ask me that speaks poorly about the level of problem solving that happens here in the maintenance department.  I’m not impressed and I wish my friend were still here so I could discuss all these issues with her in detail.   I’m reconsidering my life choices for real at this point and had it not been for my friend waiting and waving on the other side, I probably would’ve climbed my happy backside down from that cliff, with or without my un-engaging guide, and you wouldn’t be reading this story now.

Instead I jumped. Social pressure is a magical beast.  I jumped off that perfectly good cliff, and I slid like a blubbery bullet down and down, faster and further.  Uh-oh.  Too fast!  Way too fast!!!  Look out!  I’m comin’ in hot!

KA KLUNG  The brake kicked in as the destination tower got closer and my eyes grew proportionately wider. The ratio of eyeball to face at that point was about 50/50.  Despite a valiant effort by that poor inadequate braking system, I swung perilously forward and in that dreadful moment, I accepted my fate.  I was going to die, and I was going to kill a Zip Line Zombie with my backside.  But he’s so young!  He has so much to live for!

And to think, this morning I was worried about my epic makeup fail.

In other news, I have a crotchety hip now, due I’m sure in no small part to an unfortunate encounter between my backside and the straining harness tasked with keeping it suspended.  Still.  It was worth it!

You should know, no zombies were actually harmed in the making of this story.  All zip line employees survived, even though their sense of humor was DOA.  There was not a snarky comment in site, nor even an endearing eye roll.  I have a thing for eye rollers by the way.  Nope.  I swear these kids were barely alive, and they certainly weren’t living.  Today’s awesome was tragically wasted on them.

Don’t worry though, my friend and I more than made up for their lack of enthusiasm.  We went on to cross another perilous zip line and then we conquered a series of obstacles they called a rope course.  I affectionately call it hell, but whatever.  No, it really wasn’t that bad, it was just extremely difficult for a majestically out of shape slug such as myself.  It was full of sideways PVC pipe ladders, and rickety seesaws and swinging steps that made this moderately un-flexible writer do the splits-ies half a dozen times.  This impossible task was made even more insurmountable by the laughter it induced between the two of us.  You should’ve heard the commentary we had going, dangling above go-carts while fearing for our lives, and the lives of the small children in the buggies below us.   We laughed our way forward, one swinging wobbly rope at a time, and once again I was glad for that gentle social pressure, pushing me out of my cushy comfort zone and into the magic zone.

At one point, an employee yelled at us from across the rope course, and we turned toward him, shocked by the vocal outburst from a Zip Line Zombie.  Turns out he was warning us that the route we were taking was the harder of the two.  What did he mean? Did he think we couldn’t do it? He must’ve seen that six year old kid lap us in five minutes flat, and made some sort of misguided judgment about our abilities.   My friend and I looked at each other, furrowed our brows, and looked back at him with a smile.  Oh it was happening.

“You think we can’t do it???” I hurled back at the nay-sayer.

“You can do it.”  He replied, shrugging, and you better believe he was right.

Buckle up buttercup ‘cause these two mamas were gonna make it through that course if it killed us, and he would just have to sit there in a bored stupor until we either finished, or the brewing storm in the gulf washed us all away.

Not only did we make it, but I even received a begrudging smile from the “You can do it” zombie, when I emphatically declared from my perch between the last two obstacles that “I live here now”.  He smiled and shook his head, and that my friend is a sure sign of life! Ladies and gentleman, we have a pulse!

Four shaky legs, and a dozen blisters later, my friend and I crawled up onto the very last platform.  It was a great feeling.  We didn’t give up, we didn’t turn back.  We fought forward, through fear sweat and fatigue.  We tried, we triumphed and we LIVED.

While we were catching our breath, the harnesses were unceremoniously removed by the original Zombies, and the bottom promptly fell out of the sky, splattering fat rain drops onto us as we limped triumphantly back to our cars.

We did it, we lived and I wouldn’t take back a single moment.  I won’t ever do it again, mind you, but I wouldn’t take any of it back.  No, actually I think I would do it again, but only with a friend, and only after I’ve had enough time to recover and forget about some of the finer details of the pain.

It was a day to remember, and I’m so glad I showed up for it. I will tuck these memories away, along with my makeup mastery, and smile quietly from time to time, when I unravel these treasures in my mind.   I can check zip lines permanently off of my bucket list, and move forward with confidence towards other looming cliffs of opportunity.  I may be an awkward mouth breather with emotional incontinence, but by God I’m no zombie.

Wishing you love and courage, and enough enthusiasm to stave off zombie-hood,

The Glittery Nurse