Death by pleasure
It’s amazing how things can change in an instant.
Last night I was eating dinner at home, watching a basketball game, when 85 mile per hour wind gusts began to make the satellite dish on my balcony shake. This was nothing new. My dish is anchored by two cinder blocks. It’s not going anywhere, I thought.
A minute later it was anchored by nothing. It was now flying around my balcony. It gusts once more, I think, and that thing is coming through my window.
I run outside and stabilize it.
My body is now being pummeled by 85 mile per hour winds. Bodies are not supposed to take such gusts, so I’m being thrown around a bit. I wrap my arms around the tripod that holds the dish up.
I try to force it through the sliding door, but it doesn’t fit. Of course.
This was a critical moment. I had to use my brain and what little brawn I had to wrestle this fucking thing inside my home.
Ten minutes later, it was inside. But for a second there out on the balcony, I imagined the dish breaking loose of my grip, hitting me in the head, and being left to die outside as winds pummeled my useless corpse.
The headline the next day in the Denver Post would read:
“MAN KILLED TRYING TO SAVE HIS SATELLITE DISH, THE ONLY THING HE EVER LOVED”
