Bird (legs) on a wire

If there's one thing I hate worse than spiders, it's teamwork. Actually, it's people who don't use their turn signals. Followed by that Verizon guy. But after those things, it's definitely teamwork.

My main reason being — and here I'm quoting my late grandfather, who always had a profound way of looking at life — "most people are idiots."

As a result, I have always tried to do things for myself. Sure I never fared too well when it came to things like the tango or three-legged sack races, but otherwise, my life has been just fine without the help of others.

So naturally, the other day when the nice people at Charleston County parks e-mailed and asked if I'd like to participate in a team-building exercise on their high ropes course at James Island County Park, I hit reply and wrote, "Thanks but I'd rather be stuck behind a spider who doesn't use his turn signals," which I misspelled horribly as, "Absolutely! I'd love to!"

OK, so I chickened out. But if I may justify my wussiness for just a moment, the e-mail they sent did mention something about "overcoming your fears." Sure they probably meant "of heights" and not "of talking to a bunch of knuckleheads who have your life in their hands while 30 feet off the ground." But still — maybe, just maybe, deep down I thought this might be a good opportunity to renew my faith in mankind. (Bad Idea Jeans.)

Which brings us to this very moment: Me. A high wire. A partner. Kill me.

As I put my right foot and then my left on top of the half-inch-wide cable 30 feet off the ground, all I can hear is my stupid partner on the ground yelling, "I'm right here if you need me!"

Yeah, right. Like he wouldn't move out of the way faster than a matador if I came falling toward him.

As the cable began to shake underneath me, I remembered back to the safety demonstration our instructor, Danielle, gave us just a few minutes earlier.

"If you get into trouble," she said, "there are two things you can do":

1. Shout profanity.

2. I forget the second one.

OK, so she didn't say either of those things. But my mind was racing and the "recall" feature was temporarily down, so you'll have to excuse me. Danielle actually said something along the lines of calmly talking to your partner or something like that, but, like I said, mine was a moron, so this wasn't really very helpful.

Now in fairness to the people at James Island County Park, they tried to pair me with somebody with an IQ over 50, but instead, I insisted on bringing a friend of mine to serve as my partner instead. Which probably explains why he started throwing rocks at me at one point. (Thanks, Mic.)

Anyway, back to me and my shaky legs up here on the high wire. By the grace of God, I'm finally able to steady myself and make it across, only to encounter yet another set of wires. And then another. Followed by a wooden beam the width of a No. 2 pencil. Culminating in a zipline that looks as if it can end only with me slamming face-first into a telephone pole 100 feet away.

As I race down the line at what feels like 50 miles an hour, somehow gravity blows it's big shot and I stop short of the pole and then get plucked off the line by two other instructors. All the while my partner stands off to the side, doing nothing.

So here we are, four days later and I can honestly say the whole experience was a lot of fun. And, yeah, I actually learned that trusting others isn't the worst thing in the world — you just need to be very careful about whom you choose. But the biggest lesson I learned up on those wires with everybody down below watching my every move is that I probably should have worn tighty whiteys under my shorts.

Bryce Donovan couldn't even tie his own shoelaces he was so tired after doing the high ropes course. Sure, he doesn't know how to anyway, but the point is, even if he did, he still wouldn't have been able to. Reach him at bdonovan@postandcourier.com.