I made it to Seattle without a scratch. My initial reactions: "Wow, this place is awesome! Look at all those huge mountains!" After about ten minutes within the city limits: "Wait a minute." Ten more minutes: "This place is depressing gimme a fookin syringe for Christ's sake!" Oh, sure, it's easy for me to blame an entire city for my own personal woes, but hey, when the entire city fookin sucks, of course it's easy.

My bad attitude was practically ringing in my ears as I made way toward the World's Tallest Space Needle -- or the Big Fucking Eyesore, as many locals like to call it. For those of you who have never seen this thing, it's basically a relic from an old World's Fair that the schmucks forgot to take home when it was over. It's like you have guests over for a potluck, only they bring this entirely disgusting casserole made of pig's guts and dog shit, and then on their way out, they say, "Oh, keep it! We want you to have it!" And you're like, "Holy mother of God, I'd rather have my kneecaps removed with a shrimp fork than eat any of that vomit you brought," but they're like, "Sorry, gotta go, we're fleeing the country in an hour" and you're stuck. Well, that's the World's Tallest Space Needle.

I decided I wanted to jump off the top of the World's Tallest Space Needle. Years ago when I was living in St. Louis, I heard stories of a man who skydived and landed on top of the St. Louis Arch (one half of the world's most offensive corporate logo); the minute he landed, though, all the air went out of his parachute and he slid down the surface of the Arch and whammo that was the end of that guy's big adventure. I wanted something similarly gruesome, only without the element of "What a fucking pinhead, did he expect there to be some big fucking DOOR on top of the ARCH that he was just going to saunter through? In all those photos of the Arch, didn't he once notice -- HEY, THERE'S NO FOOKIN DOOR UP THERE! What, did he think he was gonna MOVE IN to the TOP OF THE ARCH or something?" What he should have done was skydived onto the top of the Statue of Liberty, because as we have all seen in print advertising, that's where the smoking section is so you know there must be a door, or at least an ashtray that he could use to pound out that Liberty chick's eyes and get back inside.

The first problem I encountered was getting to the top of the thing. I didn't have a plane or a parachute handy, so I had to resort to the elevator which ran all the way up the side of the thing. It actually costs money to ride up to the top of the World's Tallest Space Needle -- unless, that is, you call ahead from a payphone across the street and make dinner reservations for the restaurant. If you have a reservation, they let you on the elevator free. Then, when you get to the top, you blow off your reservation and head to the bar, and if anybody asks, you say, "Of course I paid to get on the elevator. How the fuck do you think I got up here? Skydived?" This handy trick is a public service announcement from the Screw The Space Needle Committee of Seattle, founded by your pal Scotto.

Problem number two was finding a way out onto the top of the thing. If there was a door anywhere, I didn't see it. I asked the bartender, "Hey Mac, how do you get on top of this thing?" The bartender, a charming fellow whose name eludes me at the moment (probably because he was a complete fookin asshole about the whole thing and do you think I'm gonna put his name in my story? fuck that) said, "Sorry, sir, but we don't allow visitors on top of the Space Needle." Thinking fast, I said, "How about a Long Island iced tea?" My drink came to me quickly, and within moments I had dropped a lit match into the drink and thrown my makeshift Molotov cocktail at the wall.

Mass hysteria ensued.

I moved toward the outside rim of the wonder needle and calmly pulled by industrial strength bolt cutters out of my backpack. People were screaming and sprinting for the elevators as flames began to consume the bar, and for all I know, they started charging people to let them ride the elevator down. That's what I would have done. I mean, sure, in an emergency you're supposed to take the stairs, but the elevator on the World's Tallest Space Needle is just so damnably scenic. As the hapless tourists fled the wonder needle faster than I could shout “Was it something I said?”, I snapped the protective safety cables that surrounded the observation deck. Using the rock climbing skills I picked up during the seven weeks I spent in a Bible camp in the Appalachians, I rapidly made my way to the outermost steel rim of the World's Tallest Space Needle. It was starting to rain.

Good God, I thought to myself. Rain? Now of all times? Here of all places?

It was then that I heard a chilling sound: the awful screams of a man whose parachute had just lost its air. I turned to see a man in a bright orange jump suit tumble right off the edge of the World's Tallest Space Needle.

And I was devastated. I just knew it, I thought to myself. There was no way I was going to get off so easy. Nothing graceful at all about this whole mess. If I jumped now, I'd just be trying to scam off how cool the skydiver was. Everyone would say, "Yeah, did you hear about the skydiver who landed on the Space Needle?" And then they'd sip off their jumbo lattes and snort and giggle and say, "Yeah, and what about that complete goon who thought he'd be cool and jump right after him? What a complete goon." And my soul would be unable to rest in peace, because I'd want to come back as a badass poltergeist mother fucker and force that jumbo latte straight down their fucking throats while shouting "Die, pretentious northwesterner, die!"

As I stood there pondering my situation, with the rain beating down on my head, the World's Tallest Space Needle burning below me, police cars starting to surround the area, I noticed a strange electrical sensation begin to creep up my spine. The hairs on my arms started to stand up. My goatee curled up and my moustache got handlebars. What the hell? I had the good sense to think, and then suddenly,

I WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!