I would like to start with a formal apology to everyone I freaked out with this experiment, however I would do it again in the name of entertainment.

This week I saw a junior start to fall in the hallway, and I watched Sam Ford-Dirks reach out to him and start to catch him. The junior didn’t fall all the way down, but I was inspired by Sam reaching out to see if my classmates would catch me if I fell on them. I feel like as a global community we have lost  much of the physical connection between people as we used to have; I hope this article inspires everyone to start throwing themselves on each other again.

On the first day I didn’t really intend for this to become a whole experiment and I just wanted to test Angeline Krupa’s reaction to me just falling on top of her. I did think she would at least make an effort to catch me because I fell right in front of her and she could’ve easily just put her arms out, but she didn’t. Libby Jaskwich did attempt to grab me with her one free hand as she was passing by, but I instead just fully hit the ground. I honestly have never felt so betrayed in my life. I also feel as though I should mention that I am very good at falling, so I was able to keep my body completely straight as I went back, so anyone nearby could’ve dived down to help me. After this disheartening fall, I was incredibly apprehensive to the idea of falling again, but knew it must be done for the people.

The next few falls were much more successful. I fell on Christian Blackburn and Gabby Ziegler, and they easily caught me, but to be fair I made the falling distance much smaller because we were outside. I then moved on to Susannah Ryan, and she seemed more scared than I did for the fall. She was suspicious as to why I approached her from across the courtyard, and later told me she thought I was going to taze her. I do not know why. I gave her a smaller fall to calm her down. My fourth fall was probably my favorite. Piper Monk is one of the most kind and unassuming people at Magnet, I decided to test her reflexes by falling backwards in the middle of her conversation with her boyfriend. She was so shocked and she froze on the spot. My whole body hit the ground and bounced up off the cold gravel. She looked so distressed, I almost felt bad for her. I explained the experiment to her and she walked away scared, confused and worried. I did decide to do this fall outside, and I got a cut on my elbo;, however it was worth it for the reaction. Anything to entertain. 

I did a quick fall on Sage, and they easily caught me. Then it was time for my epic finale. I waited as long as I could for this one because I knew it would be the most nerve wracking. A group of students always stands in the parking lot after school for at least 20 minutes. I first had to ensure that enough of them would be all together when I did the fall, so I sent our mutual friend Robby Gourdie to have a conversation with them. It was a group of about 7 kids, and once I deemed they were deep enough in conversation to not see me coming, and close enough to each other to actually catch me I went over. I have never seen chaos erupt so quickly. I walked up to the group and began to fall back. Two of them watched from the outside, Eli Leroy and Daniel Murphy each reached out a hand to try and grab me, and the rest took a step back from behind me to avoid being landed on. My upper body was held up barely by the two holding my arms, and the rest of me hit the ground. I kinda saw this outcome ahead of time, but I was still a little surprised more of them didn’t jump in. One of them said I had good dedication though. I guess that was nice. 

Disclaimer: I do not actually recommend you trying any of this. I hit the ground pretty hard when I hit, and I don’t want to be liable for anyone getting injured.

Quotes:

 “I was holding a laptop in one hand and a bag in the other and wasn’t able to catch her. I felt super guilt until I realized it was a joke. Overall, incredibly confusing.” – Eli Leroy (12)

“ I was confused” – Piper Monk (12)

“I was having an exhilarating conversation with Jacob Schar and next thing I know I’m getting dead legged by Rosie’s flying torso.” – Angeline Krupa (12)

“Rosie is weird.” – Sage (12)