Not so Lazy Sunday

wedgie of atomic proportions

Two words: atomic wedgie. That's what you get after rock climbing for three hours. Well, I suppose that's what you get after about five minutes, but you get the point. As was the case today during an intensely fun day of indoor rock climbing right here in Sydney. Man, that safety harness was a trip. I admit I tend to get embarrassed easily, but there's just something a bit awkward about strapping yourself into something that looks like it came straight from Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson's toy box, then parading around in a room full of strangers.

I'd only been climbing once before, for about 10 minutes at an amusement park in Toronto, so this was my first proper go at it. After a three minute crash course

Billy making it look easy.

on how to save my partner's life in case he starts falling (really, just three minutes?!), we were left to our own devices. The room itself was like an adult version of those McDonald's playgrounds — complete with lots of plastic, multicolored knobs and germs. Once the germaphobe in me got over the fact that those little knobs probably haven't been disinfected since they were installed, I quickly became a lean, mean, climbing machine...or so I thought. Turns out I had been scaling the "easy" route for the first half hour. It's like killing it on the bunny hill, then thinking you're Picabo Street.

View from inside the climbing centre.

I'm not gonna lie — it was tough. About halfway up my legs begin to shake and forearms start cramping. I look towards the ceiling and am convinced there is no plausible way to get there. I glance down at my partner staring back at me and become equally convinced there is no way I'm quitting. So, in a awkward pretzel-inspired move that looks like something straight out of Twister, I take a literal leap of faith and hope I catch on to something — anything. When I finally reach the top, it seems like there should be some buzzer or a flag waiting there. Maybe some kind of reward or something to mark the occasion. But nope, there's nothing. It's just me and my atomic wedgie.