Happiness is...

@thecarpathian 

Yeah, it's good that spiders can't fly!

But the cockroaches that can fly are dreadful!

Nearly 40 years ago, my best friend and I were on a long bike ride, about 40 miles down some country roads in Delaware County, SE Pennsylvania.  I had a good scenic loop for us to do.  
 

Mid ride, down this 2 lane country road in farm country, the road came to an abrupt end.  We saw the signs but I hoped our turn off was going to be before the road ended, so we continued on.

The choice was to carry our bikes 20’ across a steel ‘I’ beam that was 15’ above a creek, or turn around and go back.  My buddy went first.  He held the center stem of his bike with 1 hand at shoulder height and put his other arm out straight for balance and shimmied across the beam.  I thought to myself, that’s totally not the right way to do it because all the weight was on one side of his body and I thought he was going to fall into the creek  Nevertheless, he shimmied across the beam in like 5 seconds.

Now it was my turn.  He was now already safely on the other side and waiting for me.  So, I held the bike in both hands in front of me, equalizing the weight, like the Great Walenda crossing a type rope, and it nearly took that long too.  With the bike in front of me, I had better balance, but I also couldn’t do this quickly like he did.  It was the longest 45 seconds ever with lots of curse words in between, but I finally made it across and we continued our ride.  Happiness came from an unexpected challenge met head on and successfully conquered. 

Happiness is a warm but not too warm stereo system.

@lou_setriodes  Insane! Reminds me of the time we had to clamber over a three-foot wide blowhole with rough ocean waves 20 feet below. One slip and bye-bye. 

Happiness is getting shite-shocked by a 220 volt carbon brush on my CNC router motor and finding later in the day that I was feeling very good. Gained a whole new respect for electroshock therapy.