What happened?

I had just purchased my house and I was exploring the attic space^[1]. I wasn't even doing anything important. I was just digging around in the insulation, doing some initial planning for some projects. Then, suddenly, after a cracking noise and some frantic movement, I'm hanging by a crossbeam from my living room ceiling.

The box cover from the movie Cliffhanger depicts the scene almost perfectly.

So, there I was... just dangling there with only my bulbous muscles preventing me from falling to certain death. This image isn't entirely accurate: there wasn't a helicopter flying around behind me, but it was "an avalanche of thrills," as indicated by Jami Bernard from the New York Post.

Why, Kevin, why did you fall through?

Here's a question that gripped and shook the Nation for days afterward. A couple of theories were conjured:

• I lost my balance.
• I made the hole purposely in order to install a fire pole (how awesome would that be, for real).
• I enjoy laughing in the face of danger.

While there's some validity in all of these theories, the real reason is that I thought the ceiling drywall could support my weight. My assumption was, what experts would later call, a poor, stupid, but funny in a no-one-got-hurt sort of way assumption.

The Aftermath:

Initially, I was a little shocked, I think. There was insulation all friggin' over my living room. So, I started vacuuming it up as quickly as I could. During this time, my roommate Travis (otherwise known as Tdogg) wanders out of his room. After bearing witness to the scene, he nearly falls over from laughing so hard. You son of a bitch, Travis. 

Later, I called up my parents and rattled off the embarrassing details of what had transpired... in a completely downtrodden tonality. (You would be downtrodden, too!) Perhaps the worst part is that my parents actually laughed at me, but at least they agreed to help me fix the gigantic, gaping hole in my ceiling.

A few days later, the parents showed up to help fix my booboo. The quality of these images isn't so great - so sorry. Actually, they kind of look deshaveled like amatuer natural disaster photos or something, which is pretty damn fitting.

[1]This occurred a while ago - Circa January, 2006; long before I had this blog. But, it's been such a pivotal point in my life that I had to make a post about it so you can understand why I am the way I am!