It was a sunny summer afternoon. I was spending it at my cousin’s place as my family and his were having one of our typical get-togethers. We had been playing video games in the living room until grown up logic convinced us crazy teenagers to go outside and enjoy the sun. My cousin, we’ll call him George, suddenly remembered that he had a batchi ball set and thought it would be a good idea to have a game out on his family’s spacious lawn. He went to get the set from his room, and I went to go find my sneakers in the massive pile that had developed near the back door. I found them, put them on and proceeded to run out the screen door into the field where we were going to play. There was just one problem.
My uncle was renovating his deck, and part of that included taking the whole deck off from where it was. I had forgotten this little detail, I had also forgotten that there was even a deck there. As far as I knew I was stepping out onto fresh grass, because that is what my lack of depth perception was leading me to believe at that time.
It forgot to tell me about the 8 foot drop. I had to figure that one out while I was already in mid air.
My mother yelled out to warn me. It was good advice, but just a second too late. I was in for a long drop, and I had no idea how it was going to pan out. I did not have time to be scared though because before I knew it I had hit the ground on my side and was roling across the grass.
Once I stopped rolling I stood up immediately and was pleasantly surprised that I had not broken a single bone. I was sore for a few minutes, but I was expecting things to be a lot worse than they were.
It was at that moment that George appeared with his batchi ball set and we began our game like nothing ever happened.