Making my way like Ginger Rogers

Backwards and in heels

Maybe the heals on my steel toed boots are not quite what Ginger wore.

When it was my turn I entered the tower and clipped onto the safety wire. The clip attached to both my harness and the wire was a genius of design. It had an internal brake. If I was climbing, the brake wouldn’t engage. If I went down slow enough, it wouldn’t engage. It did however have one major flaw.

The brake was big and bulky. It got hung up on the rungs as I climbed down. It was constantly engaging itself unnecessarily. Initially, I could take two or three steps down before needing to take a step up to disengage the brake. Two steps down and one step back? Ginger would have been proud.

I wasn’t there to dance. I wanted to go home. If the climb up was difficult, the additional problem of the brake made the climb down quite irritating. I’d make progress, then need to take a step back in order to save myself from the safety feature. I was hungry and really really really needed the toilet. I needed to keep going.

One…