On April 16, seven friends and I went skydiving at Skydive the Ranch in New Jersey. We rented a black SUV (a Hyundai that had terrible acceleration and braking) and each did a tandem dive. It was a first for many of us including me.

My takeaway was that tandem diving out of a plane at 14-thousand feet is easy. The instructor takes care of everything. I just had to sit back and enjoy the view. If anything went wrong and I died, I wouldn’t feel that bad about it because I wasn’t the one who screwed it up.

Driving seven of your friends out of and back into New York City is nerve-wracking, on the other hand. I was personally responsible for everyone’s lives. Trying to return the rental car on time while driving through Union Square in Manhattan where there’s a pedestrian fair going on, ambulances and cop cars, and drivers double parking wherever they want is very stressful.

Hopefully Avis doesn’t notice the small white scratch on the mirror of their mint condition car (18 miles when I got it) that was left when I managed to squeeze through two city buses before they crushed me.