\jeff{krimmel}

Roller Skating on Saturday Night

We went roller skating on Saturday night to celebrate Michelle’s twenty fifth birthday, and I must admit that I’m still feeling it this morning. Thirty six hours later, my neck is still a little sore from one of my two spills. Yup, I fell. Twice. And one of them occurred while I was skating forward.

You would think skating forward would be fairly simple. Yeah, you might not be able to go that fast, but would you fall over? I would. And I did. I was just skating along, trying to pick up a little bit of speed, and I lost my balance. That was it. I wasn’t trying to avoid hitting a little girl. Or trying to do a jump stop. Or learning how to pick one leg up and move it over the other to make a turn. I just fell while I was skating forward.

The other fall was a little more understandable, because it happened while I was trying to learn how to skate backward. I got the double whammy of falling on my butt without even having the chance to skate. I was pretty much standing still, facing the opposite direction of most of the other skaters, I moved my feet just a little bit…and then BAM! I hit the floor.

And getting up from a fall when you’re grown up is totally different than getting up from a fall when you’re a kid. Some of those kids were practically bouncing off the floor. They would just skate and skate and skate…and then hit a wall. Or skate and skate and skate…and then run over one of their friends. Or just skate and skate and skate…and fall flat on their face or back. But with lightning quickness they would hop up and be skating again.

Me? Well, I would lie on the floor, groan, try to find a way to slowly prop myself up, and then search for broken/twisted/strained body parts. After this search was complete, I would try to collect myself enough to actually get upright. And then I would skate toward the benches and take a break.

Roller skating is brutal.