A. J. Jacobs - Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like

To Walk on the Moon

To Be Gored by a Bull

To Survive an Avalanche

To Swallow Swords

To Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel

To Be Shot in the Head

To Win the Lottery

and Other Heights and Depths of the Human Experience

To my wife, Julie,
who makes me feel like
I won the lottery.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, Id like to thank David Granger, without whom there would be no What It Feels Like, much less an Esquire magazine. Id also like to thank the frighteningly talented crew hes assembledthe writers, reporters, and freelancers who actually tracked down these stories youre about to read. Among them: Mike Sager, Cal Fussman, Brendan Vaughan, Daniel Torday, Tom Colligan, Kevin McDonnell, Will Georgantas, Bryan Mealer, Gersh Kuntzman, Matt Claus, Dr. James Whitney Hall III, Jack Murnighan, Annie Silvio, Matthew Fenton, and Elizabeth Einstein. Id also like to thank my brilliant editor, Carrie Thornton, at Three Rivers Press, my delightfully protective agent, Sloan Harris, and tenacious photo researcher Beth Johnson. And Id like to thank Larry Doyle, whose suggestion that we do an article on what it feels like to be shot kicked the whole thing off.

Contents

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

Introduction

Just taking a stab here, but in all likelihood, youve never walked on the moon. Youve probably never won a Nobel prize, been swept up in a tornado, gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel, or been mauled by a ferocious mammal, not counting pet hamsters. And if youre like me, youve never touched fake boobs or been within shouting distance of an orgy. Even safer bet: Youve never touched fake boobs after winning the Nobel prize for going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Not to worry. Were here to help. The profession of journalism is populated, on the whole, by a bunch of unmitigated wusses. As a professional journalist and a first-class wuss, I should know. But as voyeurs, were fearless. Theres nothing we like better than experiencing the heights and depths of the human conditionjust as long as we can do it while sitting comfortably on our big butts, preferably with a nice vodka tonic within arms reach. Which is why, for the past three years, Esquire magazine has collected a series of exhilarating first-person tales for our recurring feature, What It Feels Like. The result of our exhaustive research is this disturbingly entertaining book.

Thanks to Buzz Aldrin, we can share with you what its like to stomp your boots on the fine talcum powder that covers the moon. Thanks to a California spearfisher named Rodney Orr, we can describe the crunch of a great white shark chomping down on your skulls. Thanks to 76 tall basketball star Shawn Bradley, youll learn how it feels to peer down at the bald spots of everyone in a crowd. And thanks to an exceedingly candid man, we almost feel like weve touched the grapefruit-like orbs that are fake boobsand without inciting the wrath of our lovely wives. Now youll feel the same way.

The contributors featured here have been fearlessboth for experiencing these things for us, and for being generous enough to tell a bunch of dorky journalists all about it. Some, like Jeff Noble, survivor of Hurricane Floyd, approached us themselves, eager to share their tales. Others we tracked down through endless phone calls and Internet searches. Still others we just stumbled on thanks to pure dumb luck (when we featured a photo spread on actress Laura Elena Harring in Esquire , she happened to mention that she also survived a gunshot wound). Some of these essays have appeared in Esquire before, but most are new to this book. Regardless, we know what it feels like to be grateful to the folks who talked to us. So sit back on your wide butt, turn the page, and read what they went through for you.

A. J. JACOBS

Part 1
What It Feels Like to Battle Nature

What It Feels Like to Be Struck by Lightning

[By Max Dearing, 44, sound engineer]

I have a degree in electronics, so I know about the destructive power of high-voltage energy, but this was beyond what I could have imagined. I was struck on a typical North Carolina July afternoonlittle billowy clouds floating by, mostly sunny.

I was out golfing in Durham with four of my coworkers on a Friday afternoon. We were on the fifth hole when it started to sprinkle. We decided to get under a shelter and wait it out. We were standing there, just kind of harassing each other the way we always did, just talking junk. I remember the air had a sweet ozone smell to it. Thats about the last thing I recall before the strike.

When the bolt hit, I was absolutely frozen, just as cold as Ive ever been in my entire life, but then part of me was incredibly hot, too. I saw these red flashing lights, and I kept thinking, Its a fire truck! A fire truck! as if I were a little kid. Then there was the most incredible noise Id ever heard. The sound was so loud that I honestly couldnt hear anything. Evidently, its so loud that it blows the cilia in the ear completely flat.

I felt as if Id been slammed between two Dumpsters. It was like every case of the flu youve ever had, at one time. My arms and my legs and my hands all felt as if they weighed 5,000 pounds. Every bit of my body was just in absolute pain. It was such a dull ache, and so sharp at the same time; it was like everything from a migraine headache to a hangover to needles being stuck in every millimeter of your body. My hair hurt, my eyelashes hurt; I could feel it when my hair moved, when the wind blew across me.

The lightning bolt had gone down along a tree next to us, taken off some branches on its way down, and then hit the overhang of the shelter, putting a huge hole in it. Then it went through Terry, one of my buddies. He was struck through the top of his head, and it came out his knee.

It killed him immediately. Then it shot up from the ground and hit the rest of us. It went up through me and left an exit wound in my head that needed eight staples. Now I have a hard time with addition and subtraction. I can handle some fairly complex math involving trigonometry and calculus, but dont ask me to add. The doctors say, Oh, theres nothing wrong with you. But I know there is. Figuring out how to fix it, thats about like shooting mosquitoes with a shotgun.

AS TOLD TO DANIEL TORDAY

What It Feels Like to Be Buried in an Avalanche

[By Lester Morlang, 48, contractor]

My partner and I were at 12,700 feet, putting a snow shed over a gold mine in the La Plata Mountains in Colorado. My partner was Jack Ritter, and he was my mentor and my friend, may he rest in peace. It was about four oclock in the afternoon. I was standing in the loader bucket, and Jack was handing me 12-foot-long planks. There was no warning; it was instant. All of a sudden I was curled up in a ball doing somersaults. Then it was over and I was buried. They figured out later I was under 50 feet of snow.

It was totally dark. My mouth was packed with snow. The pressure was enormous; it was hard to breathe. I literally didnt know which direction was up. I thought, Oh my God, am I going to die like this? And then I thought, Oh my God, maybe Im already dead.

Luckily I had my hands over my face. I cleared the snow out of my mouth with my fingers. And then I was screaming for Jack. You get into something like this and you absolutely lose it. It was absolute panic. I was screaming, I was bawling, I was out of my mind. The tears and snot and stuff was flowing. And then, I noticed it: All the tears was kind of running crossways across my face. I realized I was laying kind of upside down and backwards. That was a real moment of truth. Now I had a mission. I had to get out.