Ohhhh THAT one, YESSSS! I remember that... and you have NO idea how TRUE that is.....
I'm sure I told you, but a few years ago we were real busy... go - go - go, and we got a call to somewhere down by Vegas.. of course it was a zillion degrees in the shade, and there was one older, FUNNY guy on the load.. he just kills me, he is SO funny.... the guys all adore him because it can be the worst day in HELL, and he makes it fun. I LOVE when he is on the load, then life is just fun...
Well, he was number 3 or 4 on the load, the fire was woofing away, and we went into jumping right off... this guy was tightening up his gear to get ready when he realized he had shoved his glasses, his regular prescription glasses, down into his PG bag. He thought "Aw, crap!" but then thought "Oh what the hell", that he could see good enough to jump onto a flat desert spot.
Well, the jump spot was FULL of cactus.... there was cactus, and cactus, and more cactus, like for a few hundred miles in every direction.. and a few days later on, this guy was laughing his loud, boisterous laugh back at the base and when I came up, it turned out he was telling his jump story from this fire:
"So! I'm getting lower, maybe a few hundred feet up off the spot, and I KNOW that Joe and Bob are there already, so I'm looking for 'em, but then, HELL! I see all these other people, all waving up at me.. I thought 'WHAT THE HELL'..?!? Where did THEY all come from? And of course I'm gettin' closer and these bozos are just STANDIN' there, WAVIN' at me, why the hell don't they get out of the WAY, when I get down and %$#%&$%$%, they're JOSHUA TREES!"
He barely made it through the biggest spiny obstacles and somehow only hit some smaller ones, but he thought those gnarly trees were PEOPLE, oh my gawwd, we laughed and laughed until we were sick, it was so damned funny.... of course for weeks after that, every time he walked by, the guys all stuck their arms out at odd angles and "waved" at him.....
We laughed about that one for months... well, obviously, we STILL are.....