Bad Decision Tuesday: Irresponsible Horseplay On The Edge Of The Grand Canyon

Okay, so this one isn't so much a poor clothing choice as it a poor judgment call, but I figure bad decisions are bad decisions, so what the hell. I came across a massive bundle of old photographs the other day and was so excited at all the horrors within---sartorial and otherwise---that I now believe I have enough evidence to keep Bad Decision Tuesday going for.....well, possibly forever. Honestly, it's like I didn't understand back then that the camera had been invented and would record me in all my awkward glory FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.  Oh, the pictures that are to come, you just wait.

For now, however, I would like to discuss what a thoroughly bad decision it is to lark around near national landmarks, and for this I will need to take us back to December 2002, when Sean and I had packed up our belongings, loaded them into a large Penske truck---with my Jeep Wrangler attached to the back, just try parallel parking that little cavalcade---and were in the process of moving from San Diego to Charleston. On the way there we stopped at the Grand Canyon, which neither of us had ever been to before, and I---imbued with the unparalleled wisdom hubris apparent immortality of a 22-year-old---decided it would be a simply marvelous idea to do this:

OH MY GOD, I KNOW. I know. What was I thinking? One false move and I'd have plummeted to my death! I guess it's a good thing there weren't any banana peels just lying around on the side of the Grand Canyon, you know?

Sean---a far more mature 26-year-old---decided to play it a little safer (snort) and merely sit on the edge of a 6000-foot deep abyss. How sensible! How restrained! I bet the fall to the bottom wouldn't have hurt nearly as much!

(By the way, as much as this was a terrible decision and I'm sure my mother is on a fainting couch somewhere right now and you shouldn't try this at home---or, uh, anywhere, really, least of all the Grand Canyon---I would like to point out that I do seem to have made one good decision in this picture. I still have those Puma sneakers, you see, and I still wear them weekly and they are still my favorite sneakers in the world. In fact, I wore them to patrol the Las Vegas airport for 48 hours straight last week and it was like walking on a cloud. And those suckers are at least six years old! Puma, call me, I think I deserve a new pair of shoes. Or at least a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, right? They're practically vintage. At this point, you could stick them in the window of a storefront on Haight and sell them for two hundred bucks.)