Skate Or Die (Trying)

My wife promised our sons a reward in exchange for the first real big-boy cleaning project they had undertaken. The project itself involved removing all of the thousands of pairs of my wife’s shoes (and I guess I had a few in there too somewhere) from the front hall closet and matching them neatly where my wife and I would be able to assess which to keep and which to donate to the big metal clothing box next to the cleaners.

Since our living room floor was soon filled with a perfectly matched, well organized army or footwear, the aforementioned reward was forthcoming. My sons had decided they wanted roller-blades and my wife, being a roller-blade fan herself, was more than happy to volunteer my time to take them and pick some out that very evening.

How I was assigned this task, I’ll never know. I never tried roller-skating in my life. I ice-skated once long ago and was happy to escape with my life and a non-fractured tailbone. Roller-skating never interested me. I was fine with various other manners of physical exercise, but growing up a tall, lanky kid, I tended to shy away from activities that made me look any more like a baby giraffe taking its first steps than I already did.

But there I was in the sporting goods store. And there I was walking out with two identical sets of roller-blades. Thankfully, the skates that happened to be on sale were the most boyish looking ones with the black and red flames along the side.

Upon returning home, I set the boxes down in a very conspicuous location so that my wife would see them immediately upon her return. This was my silent, not so subtle version of a sarcastic, “Happy now?”

I fully expected that my sons would do one of two things the following morning. First, they may refuse to ever put the skates on while simultaneously refusing to allow me to take them back to the store for a refund just in case they changed their mind. Second, they might put on the skates, fall once within the first minute and then refuse to wear them ever again, effectively not allowing me to take them back to the store for a refund because all the tags and labels had been cut off already.

What actually happened is proof positive that they are half my wife, just as I will take credit for the Lego proficiency portion of their personalities.

These two little buttheads not only stood up on the skates and tried them out (in the house mind you), but continued to skate around the living room for several hours straight. Then, after a meal, they put the skates back on and skated some more. Thank God for wood floors.

The wobbly beginnings soon gave way to confident strides. The arm waving was replaced with the grabbing of nearby objects like tables or bookcases and propelling themselves across the room at high speeds.

The next day saw more of the same. While I was at work, I could hear the sounds of a roller derby rink in my basement while speaking to my wife on the phone. The kids couldn’t get enough. They were, suddenly, skating fools.

While I had opposed the decision to buy the roller-blades, I had to admit that it worked out. I told my wife that she deserved a great deal of credit as I happily watched them skate in circles around the basement. The confidence they displayed was amazing and it made me proud to watch them.

Before we knew it, the pleas came.

“When can we try it outside?”

Proud as could be, I couldn’t deny them the next stage of their development as fledgling skaters. So, I happily volunteered my wife’s time to take them to the tennis courts at the park for some outdoor practice tomorrow.