Roll Bounce

I went roller skating on a Saturday night. Friends of mine decided to have a joint birthday party (35th birthday party) at the Dairy Ashford Roller Rink. We were wisely advised to stretch beforehand. When you sign in, there is a column for "Guests" and a separate column for "Adult Skaters." I had an AWESOME time. Turns out, after a few shaky laps around the rink (much smaller now, of course, than in my memories) it's fairly easy to remember how to roller skate, and it's really pretty fun if you can dodge the 5 and 6 year olds wiping out all around you and also manage to enter and exit the rink - a precarious transition that is both a 5-inch step and change in floor coverings from carpet to hardwood - without landing on your grown up duff. Seriously, I know exactly where they need to put a grab bar for old folks. Stopping is also a skill I have yet to recover from my childhood memory banks...

There was a really creepy 30-something dude skating all by himself. Based on his being a similar age and the law of averages, people probably assumed he was with our party, but he was not. Also, he wasn't really skating - what he was doing was more like skate dancing, and it involved making bizarre and spastic movements in the same spot on the floor, not rolling with the oval flow of skate traffic like the rest of the skate guests. He was really bad at whatever trend he was trying to start, literally doing The Robot with his upper body while pointing and flexing his be-skated feet. None of it was in time to the music. At one point he tried to do a butt spin. I am confident he was violating his parole by being within 150 feet of an unaccompanied minor.

After we had cake and ice cream (delicious strawberry cake and cute little individual ice cream cups) I was the first among our group to venture back out onto the rink. Now I was the only creepy adult skating alone in a sea of children preteens, but I was initially oblivious to that fact, my hair whooshing satisfyingly as I made left turns, thinking about how with each lap I was surely burning at least the calories in a spoonful of Blue Bell. Then suddenly I heard someone behind me say my name, the "is that you?" lilt in her voice. I turned around to spot a former coworker rolling up behind me. "What are you doing here?" I looked frantically around for ANYONE in my party, but, nope, there I was, with no good excuse in sight. Redfaced, I stammered that I was here for a friend's party and motioned to the group of adults at the opposite side of the rink, none of whom were even looking back at the rink. At last, I regained my senses and retorted, "Hey, what are you doing here?" And we were able to share a laugh at the fact that we were simultaneously retro-hipster and huge goofballs for being childless adults at a skating rink on a Saturday night.

For the next outing my friends and I are planning matching T-shirts or possibly hooded sweaters as well as a fully choreographed line dance routine to Young MC's Bust a Move. You should plan to be there.