The stupidest miracle

Lacking Subtlety — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:39:23 -0800

I just did something banally amazing. Now I'm overcome with a profound sense of dread. Is this legitimate? We just had some down time at work and we were throwing paper airplanes. Now I should say, that we never have downtime at this job, but this was different because our computers were down. So the fact that people kind of went nuts with the opportunity to play around and were super-into designing awesome paper airplanes.

Anywho, someone was watching us from down the hall and said, "Hey! someone throw it in here!" and placed a tall, thin glass on edge of their desk... this was a good 47 feet away, no lie. My co-worker tried first and it only went about 15 feet. Then I went.

I lined up and said the words "it's in there like swimwear" aloud in a sort of faux-pompous idiocy, then tossed it so nonchalantly, like I did it everyday. It had perfect arc. It swooped down, then back up for second, and went right into the freaking glass. Seriously this glass is a good three to three and half inches wide at best. And again 47 feet away (we retroactively measured it). Needless to say, when it happened people celebrated like we just one the Superbowl. People tried to replicate the event for the next hour and no one even came within 10 feet of the glass. People can't stop talking about it.

So Now Then.

About 3 hours have passed and I have been overcome with this weird sense that I will never, ever, in my entire life be so lucky or do something as great as this... I'm being serious. I know this is nowhere near as important as 99% of the things in my life, but I still feel a genuine sense of dread that what happened was just the coolest, and sadly most interesting thing I will ever do in my entire life. I am rather upset about this.

I realize there is nothing more trivial in the entire world as what I am saying. It was a funny, flukely, silly thing that involved coworkers and bored editors. No one else will care. And yet I am extremely bothered. I have no reason to feel like this. Also, I am not normally like this, as I am generally a worry-free and positive person.

Why would something so utterly trivial and stupid, actually bother me? Is anyone else effected by a whimsical situation that they feel has some sort of grand karmic affectation on their actual life?

I honestly just feel like I just used up my quota of luck.

Is this insane?

The correct answer is yes.

But is it insane to feel that way nonetheless?

Help me find the best paper airplane for this project

snsranch — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:40:40 -0800

Can anyone suggest a really great paper airplane design or a cheap balsa glider? The idea is to nest it beneath a kite and release it at the highest possible altitude. I have the release worked out (we have considered dropping eggs on people) but don't have any idea what plane would work best in this scenario. My kids have been really into flying kites lately and I thought this would be a cool way to have some fun with it. Thanks in advance!

Intermediate names for paper airplanes?

rushmc — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:35:59 -0800

What did people call paper airplanes in the gap between when paper was invented and when the airplane was invented? Paper birds?

Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with paperairplanes

The stupidest miracle

Help me find the best paper airplane for this project

Intermediate names for paper airplanes?