Things took a decided turn toward the surreal somewhere after lunch. A co-worker managed to convince me to go for a drive with him downtown to run an errand. The errand ended up being us going BASE jumping from the top of the Library Tower. You know, that building that gets blown up in Independence Day.

So Lord knows how, but he's got access to the top of that building. We manage to get these enormous parachute/glider things -- you know, the rectangular ones with the pull-strings so you can guide yourself -- into some side freight elevator that one of his friends who actually works in the building hooked us up with. We sneak up onto the roof and I get over near the edge and look down. Christ on a monorail, I'm scared out of my mind. I mean, I've never done this before, I've gone skydiving but that was a tandem jump and all I had to do was let them strap me into this harness and the guy behind me would push me out of the plane and pull the ripcord and everything. And this is downtown L.A., it's unsanctioned, we could get thrown in prison or worse -- I could misguide myself and fly headfirst into some office building and accidentally kill myself.

But I have to go through with it. There's no way down other than off the top of the building because the freight elevator is gone and there's no way to call it back without the special keycard that we don't have. It's a no-win situation for me. So I suck it up, my co-worker straps me into this whole get-up, then demonstrates how I'm supposed to take off by running and jumping off the side of the roof.

So I'm all alone up there, damn it. What the hell am I supposed to? I take a few deep breaths to ward off hysteria, back up to the other side of the roof, tell myself, "There's no other way down," and take off. I run across the roof and jump.

I'm sailing through the air, plummeting towards the ground and I yank the ripcord. The parachute bursts open, but I waited too long. I'm already too close to the ground to really catch an updraft to go sailing off to avoid traffic, so I'm pretty much going to land in the middle of a busy street, stopping traffic as I attempt to roll up this big-ass parachute. I'm freaking out. I'm going to jail, I just know there's a call going out over the police frequencies right now to catch me and put me in the slammer for creating a disturbance like this. Hell, I'm more worried about that than pulling off a landing that I can walk away from, especially considering I've never done this before and I have no clue what the hell I'm doing!

And then it occurs to me. Didn't I get my flu shot right after lunch? Haven't I only seen the Library Tower once on a tour of downtown L.A. and never seen it again? Aren't I actually sitting at my desk, supposedly editing a column for next week's issue?

Yeah, apparently I am. Damn, that flu shot is some powerful stuff.