797: What I Was Thinking As We Were Sinking
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeper in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. I've had a bunch of bike accidents in the last year and a half, and the moment that things go wrong is always the same. These accidents happen during my morning commute, and they always happen when it rains. I have this very light bicycle I got, and when it rains, something about this bike on the city streets, a metal grate, a slippery patch of any sort at all can make the bike slip out from under me. I've broken a clavicle, I've banged up my wrist, I've given myself some kind of bruise on my right arm that still wakes me up at night, months later. And in each of these three accidents, you know, like when you're following, there's that second or two, when you realize you're going down and you're on your way down, but you haven't actually hit the ground yet, weirdly, it is enough time for a bunch of thoughts to go through your head, and all three times, like I say, it's been the same. Somehow I get very calm, and I think, "Oh, this isn't going to be so bad, I'm not going very fast, the ground isn't that far, there's a car coming, okay, no car is coming, I figured out how to fall, it's going to be fine, this time." And I think everybody knows how a person reacts under duressic and tell you something about them. I think what this set of thoughts says about me is, I am optimistic even when there is no factual basis for it at all, like at the exact moment, when I'm going to collide with the wet surface of the street, a moment when things are definitely not going to be fine, I'm thinking things will be fine. I think this optimism has kept me in faltering relationships, but I mentioned all this at our radio show story meeting this week, one of my co-workers, somebody who I've worked with, closely for years, told me, he has never said this, that he thinks my optimism is the single most important quality I have. He said, "Oh, tell me there are 17 things that can go wrong with some plan that we have, and I'll just go like, 'Yeah, let's go for it.'" Though I have to say after three accidents, I have learned not to ride this particular bike in the rain, thank you very much. Today on our program, we have stories where things go very, very badly for people, they are on the way down, and in that moment of crisis. Their thinking reveals so much about who they are. Some people, it leads to new insights, some it leads to no insights at all, and some are hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration, and figure out how to save themselves. From WBC Chicago, this is American Life, I'm Eric Glass, stay with us. Equine, Pirates of the Caribbean town. When some are a while back, a group of friends got in trouble, got in over their heads, almost literally, in the middle of Boston Harbor. Our producer, Ike Sreece Condorajah, tells the tale, though, for the purposes of today's story, call him Ishmael. I've been friends with you this whole time, and I didn't know that this is your most told story. Well, I wouldn't tell it to you, you were there. I was there. It was over ten years ago, and I was a new resident in the Boston area. My good friend, Sophie Tintori, introduced me to some people she knew well. We liked the same kinds of jokes, and could only afford the same kind of rent. So we moved into a big house together.
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