My friend Paul is a fantastic gift giver. Seriously, he deserves a city street or a fishing boat named in his honor.

For my birthday in January, Paul promised to take my skydiving. In July we finally went (I said he’s a great gift giver, I never said he’s prompt).

We rolled up to the skydiving school, which basically consisted of a few little shacks in the middle of a field, and I was a little skeptical. I’d heard great things about this place, but the number of posters and lawn gnomes in and around the office didn’t really put me at ease.

They started us out watching a promotional video of people jumping out of planes, which in all honesty, was pretty cool. Then they cut to the safety video. Surprisingly, all the talk about what could potentially go wrong during our jump wasn’t what bothered me the most about the video.

It was the speaker’s beard.

This guy was the real life version of Cousin It. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what he said, because I was completely mesmerized by this beard. It was brown, wavy, and extended well beyond where the screen ended.

All these questions raced through my head as he talked:

Seriously, how long is that beard?

I wonder if it ever gets caught in his zipper…

Does he braid it when he skydives? If not, does it get in his face?

I bet he brushes it. He has to brush it right?

Better question, does he condition it? That’d take a lot of conditioner.

Soon my instructor roused me from my trance, and we were taught proper exit techniques and fitted with an altitude watch and a pair of super snazzy goggles before walking out to the plane.

Now, I like to think that I have a lot of chutzpah. I’ve tried a number of weird foods, hiked along narrow cliff sides over raging waters in Italy, backpacked all by myself for a few weeks in Ireland last December, and once even helped castrate a really pissed off bull, but whatever confidence I had prior to walking out to the airplane hanger quickly evaporated when I saw the plane we’d be flying in.

It was tiny. And looked kind of rickety.

Paul went first, so I waited on the ground for 20 or so minutes scanning the sky for the little plane. It wasn’t until the canopy of the parachute flew open that I saw Paul again. He floated down no problem, doing a couple little tricks in the air with the instructor before sliding across the field on his butt. His hair was ridiculously windblown, but he couldn’t stop smiling. I thought, “Well if he can do it, I can do it.”

My instructor, the pilot, two other jumpers, and I used our best Tetris skills to load into the little plane. The plan was that the first woman would jump out at 2,500 feet, and the rest of us would jump at 10,000 feet.

Soon we were off and soaring above the Chippewa Valley. It was stunning. The lakes and hills looked glorious in the late afternoon light. I was lost in the wonder of the landscape.

And then they opened the plane door.

It sounded like 5,000 airplane toilets were flushing simultaneously. The wind roared outside the door, and cold air burst into the cabin, forcing its way into my lungs.

“Dear God,” I thought. “This is going to be the end for me.”

Clutching my harness I glanced out the window again. How is this only 2,500 feet? We were already so high! Fear began to rise in me like yeast in bread. We were only a fourth of the way up, but everything below us already looked miniscule. Tearing my eyes from the ground, I tried to focus on the fluffy, white clouds we were now rising above instead.

All too soon my instructor announced that it was time to jump. Again, they opened the hatch and the other woman stepped out onto a foothold, leaving room for my instructor and I to exit the plane. He picked me up and towed me to the edge, (he was impressively strong for such a small man) and showed me where to place my feet. As he rechecked the straps, I looked down at the landscape that was rushing by.

What had I gotten myself into?

He rocked us back and forth once to signal we were going and before I could object, he barrel rolled us out of the aircraft.

For then next 30 or so seconds we fell more then 5,000 feet. They were simultaneously the longest and shortest 30 seconds of my life. It felt like we’d fallen for ages, but as soon as we stopped it felt like no time had passed at all.

It was exhilarating. I felt the adrenaline coursing through my body; felt the air surge by; felt my lips pushed back like a dog with its head out the window on the interstate.

And yes, I screamed practically the entire fall (Paul actually said he could hear me screaming all the way up there).

After falling half the distance we had rose, my instructor pulled the cord, letting the parachute rip from the pack, and jerking us upright. As he did some more safety checks, I surveyed the beautiful countryside and tried to pretend like I didn’t have the worst wedgie of my life.

For eight minutes or so, we floated high above the Chippewa Valley before landing in a hump of parachute in the same field we’d taken off from just 30 minutes prior.

The verdict? Absolutely amazing. The sweatshirt I bought Paul for his birthday pales in comparison. I’ll have to up my game next year. Volcano boarding, perhaps?