"And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?" (― this and the ending quote by Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) I have less than a half a dozen Cutaways. But they happen. In nearly 17 years of skydiving this was the first time due to not being able to pull my main PC (pilotchute). Followed the Procedure, landed safe and sound, got all my gear back - awesome! - But received some startling comments: "𝘩𝘢𝘩𝘢, 𝘐 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘫𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦!", or a weirder "𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 *𝘺𝘰𝘶* 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺?" Fortunately, I don't feel the need to pull my pants down and show off my private parts to impress anyone (or do whatever is expected to be done for validation and to align with who thinks what in their heads). "Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.”















