old news: how NOT to climb cranes.
“Hey! This is the police! …We will fuck you up!”
As much as I wish that statement came from the mouth of an actual officer of the law, it must sadly be attributed to a drunk college kid with a megaphone. I’m not entirely sure if they actually thought we would believe them and/or acknowledge them in any way, but hey, i’ll give them points for trying. This was our second run-in with collegiate douchebags in a week- the first being the time a kid with a popped collar walked by and said “you guys gonna climb that?” (smokestack on an active coal power plant) “Because I totally did. I took a shit in it.” Sure you did, friend. Sure you did.
Anyway, let’s back up to the beginning of our little venture in doin’ it wrong. Now, I have climbed countless cranes in the last few years, and as cranes go, this one seemed relatively easy. I was hopped up on red line and practically about to start bursting out in showtunes unless we got on top of something tall that night. Well, the local university was building a stadium, so we gathered up Apple’s brother and brother’s girlfriend- both of whom had never done anything of this sort before- and headed out.
Well, when we got to the part where you have to squeeze through a fence, the girlfriend chickened out and elected to stay at the bottom. We didn’t realize until halfway up the crane that “stay at the bottom” meant “sit right at the foot of the crane and stare upwards, immediately attracting anyone’s eyes to the people climbing it”.
Aside from that, we were a little careless about our tripods banging against the metal, we were talking rather loudly, climbing out the jib where we were much more visible, and there was a lightning storm going on in the background. Needless to say, we had to beat a rather hasty retreat. Fun times.
