The rink was blissfully free of derelicts, white trash and birthday parties this past Sunday. We almost went to a different rink, but our late night of gaming plus springing ahead caused us to sleep in. We’re lucky we made it to the 1:30 skate at all. We’re also lucky we have a four-year-old son to wake us from the dead.

My mood was so great that I even attempted to take Chooch around the rink by myself while Henry was lacing up.  This probably wasn’t the best idea. Anytime I try to teach someone something, I immediately refer to my inner Svengali and it just never ends well. Case in point: I was rather sternly trying to coerce Chooch to stop body-humping the carpeted wall and skate on his own. He was like, “OH MY GOD LADY ARE YOU NUTS I CAN’T DO THAT!” and I was all, “YES YOU CAN OR ELSE YOU WILL NEVER LEARN AND YES I AM NUTS, DUH.” Eventually, Henry appeared, with his stupid black curls billowing in his wake like he’s some roller rink knight, and he excused me from…what did he excuse me from? Oh that’s right, being an AWESOME PARENT.

Anytime I am in any sort of a mentoring position, it becomes painfully and quickly obvious that I am a Leo and my patience drains faster than veins in Mystic Falls. I remember one time when I worked at MSA, my supervisor asked me if I ever had any interest in supervising positions. I laughed so hard. Lady, the last thing your company wants is for this asshole to have any sort of power.

I feel like I really hit my stride that day. I was effortlessly ducking in and out of congested clumps of roller amateurs and even skated backward for a bit, which I will admit is the ONLY FLAW in my skating repertoire. And there was only one fool I hated on the entire afternoon. He had two immediate strikes against him, in that he was:

1. a teenager
2. a teenager on rollerblades

One of the cardinal rules is that obviously  speed-skating is verboten. But this motherfucker with the shaggy hair and ugly hoodie (he totally wasn’t a scene kid) felt that he was exempt from all roller rink decorum and did whatever the fuck he wanted, felling skaters like dominoes in his rolling back wash.

Meanwhile, rink ref blew his whistle not once, not twice, BUT NO TIMES. Unreal. I’d skate past rink ref seconds after this erratic douche-on-wheels cut through the stream of skaters ON A DIAGONAL and I would scowl at him and his stupid striped Foot Locker employee shirt and with my eyes I’d scream, “I know you saw him do that, blow your whistle, motherfucker!” But he never did.

So it has been decided that I want to apply to be the new rink ref. This current one just isn’t doing it for me. He’s lazy, oblivious,  doesn’t blow the whistle when overweight middle-aged men attempt splits in the center of the rink, he doesn’t stare at my breasts nearly as much as all the other men here, there and everywhere do. I know I would be a fantastic rink ref.  I think the reasons are pretty obvious:

• I excel at intimidating kids.
• I wear stripes. A lot.
• I love to blow things.

The roller rink we’ve been going to every Sunday isn’t really the greatest. It’s small, kind of out of the way, severely lacking in hot pants and has a cramped snack room with unfriendly attendants (according to Henry, anyway).

But it does have Roller DJ. And he is pretty fucking awesome. I’m not sure why I feel this way, and I know Henry has no idea why I feel this way. (“You’re so weird,” he mumbles, every time I walk away in a giggle fit from a Roller DJ run-in.) Last week, we were still sitting in the car when I saw him rolling his rotund self out of the driver side of some down-trodden green Blazer-type vehicle. His hair looked like the follicular version of a mushroom cloud and his lower half was stepped into baggy, worn flannel pj bottoms.

“Wow,” Henry and I murmured in tandem. Except mine had an “I love that guy” tacked on to the end.

The back of his dusty car boasts a magnetic advertisement for some herbal miracle weight loss drink. Nothing like a good, hearty swig of irony. Kim told me that he gave her a bottle of it last week, but after Googling it, she’s too scared to try it. I suggested she just give it to me. I’m not scared of ingesting illegal and harmful potions in the name of weight loss. If not for Henry, I’d have about 12 tapeworms in me right now.

This past Sunday, Roller DJ’s hair was noticeably less swollen. Kim immediately accused him of being the victim of a hair cut, which made him defensive.

He insisted, “I did not! It’s just wet.” And to me, he said, “Touch my hair.”

And I did. Having too much pity on my fingertips to force them all the way to Roller DJ’s scalp, I stopped halfway, quickly rubbing  between the pads of my thumb and pointer  a curl-i-que slick and moist with what I hoped was water and not natural scalp juices and molten filth.

“Yeah,” I said around a gulp. “It’s wet.”

As soon as he walked away, I said in a hysteric voice to no one and everyone at once, “I can’t believe I just did that!”

Henry and Kim looked horror-stricken, and expressed in unison that they too could not believe I touched his hair. I mean, it’s not the velvety locks of Justin Bieber, for shit-packing Christ’s sake. It’s goddamn Roller DJ. Who knows what he rubs in those black pube-like tufts.

When I was telling my co-workers about it yesterday (yes, it was that big of a deal to me), Barb asked, “And if he asked you to touch his penis, would you have touched that too?”

I can’t answer that without knowing more of the situation.

***

Elsewhere at the rink, Henry’s mom and sister Kelly joined us. Kelly brought her youngest, Zac, and her second-oldest daughter, Ashley. Like Chooch, Zac is not yet able to skate on his own, so Ashley chaperoned him as he edged along the wall.

Meanwhile, my lazy/spoiled son was being  pulled around the rink in a leisurely manner by his new professional handler, Chris. The scene would have been much  more complete had Chris been holding a parasol above Chooch’s head. I caught Chooch laughing and pointing as he rolled past Zac, who was lying on the floor in a small heap, post-wipeout.

“At least he’s TRYING!” I shouted to Chooch. Jesus Christ, that kid.

It’s surpising he didn’t stretch out on a lawnchair first, daiquiri in hand, and have Chris roll him under.

Last week, I skated into some man, stopping only after I splayed my hands against his Steelers-jersied chest. He was there again this week, in the same Mendenhall shirt (hate that I know who that is) and I immediately taunted Henry with little songs about how my boyfriend was back. During Backward Skate, which Kim made me stay on the rink for but I ducked off after two revolutions when she wasn’t looking, my boyfriend looked over his shoulder just in time to avoid crashing into me.

“I’m not very good at this!” I laughed.

“Either am I!” he shouted over whatever Longest Song in the History of Music that was playing over this week’s Backward Skate. (I should start jotting these down.) “Just sort of let yourself cruise!”

I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny at all, and couldn’t wait to rub it in Henry’s face. Apparently, it worked, because that combined with the fact that I absentmindedly missed Ladies’ Choice had him feeling really neglected. He told me later that night that he was sitting on the bench with his mom and sister, waiting for me to come and claim him, but I just kept skating past without looking at him. Which is confusing considering last week I had to knock people out of my way to chase him around the rink and claim him.

I do sort of have a crush on Rollerskating Henry. Don’t tell anyone.

By the time we left, Roller DJ’s hair was the slightest bit poufier. Oh my god, why did I touch his hair?

When I ran into Kim and her boyfriend Chris last month at the Zombie Santa shindig, she mentioned that they were thinking of going roller skating sometime; I invited myself quicker than I snatch the cherry from Henry’s milkshake. It was a given that Henry was going to want to come along too; he’s like Brian Boitano on wheels, after all.

“It smells like alcohol out here,” Chooch said as we staked our places in the line that was slightly snaked out the door. I’m not sure how he knows what alcohol smells like, but we weren’t in any sort of company that would have flinched at his statement.

Henry was still pissing around, trying to find a pair of skates that would fit Chooch, when the session officially started. I couldn’t bear to miss a second, so I ditched them there on the bench. When I came back around, Chooch was kneeling on the bench, arms folded, watching me with a big dimpled smile. “You were awesome, Mommy!” he enthused, and I was kind of like, “Um, yeah, no shit” but instead I graciously thanked him for his obvious statement.

Last year, Chooch was able to wear those plastic jobs that slip over the shoe. His feet are too big for that now so he had to wear a real pair, which was interesting. Every time he tried to stand, his feet flew right out from under him. I might make him wear a pair all the time around the house to maybe thwart his desire to ever try and be mobile again.

I’m always afraid that I’m going to step out onto that glorious wooden rink and find that my ability to glide with the grace of Princess Di’s hand during a royally rusty trombone has gone out of style faster than Katy Perry. (What, people still like her? Oh.) Good news, I’m still fabulous! The only difference is that now that I’m an adult, I’m higher up, and thinking of the consequences of falling really scares the shit out of me. Because if I fall? With my luck? It’s going to be less bruises, more open fractures. I find that I spend more time focusing on avoiding the amateurs and maniac kids, and less time getting my Anita Baker-circa-Same-Ole-Love-video groove on. (I’ve been watching A LOT of VH1 Soul. A LOT.)

Henry finally had both his skates and Chooch’s skates efficiently laced and was gingerly easing him onto the rink. Motherly Obligations began nagging at me, so I slowed to a stop as I came around to the rink opening. Henry could tell that the last thing I wanted to be doing was having a 4-year-old rollerskating virgin holding me down, so he said, “Just go,” shooing me away with one Bo Brady hand. Thank god Henry is All Parent.

Kim is a good skater, so we were able to skate around and converse (as best as we could over the pulsating Kiss FM beats) like we were leisurely strolling through Kensington Park (London on my mind, I guess), while wobbly skaters attempted to pull us down with them. We both bemoaned the fact that too  much shitty Top 40 was playing, though. AND NO LADY GAGA THIS TIME, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Do you even know how majestic that broad’s jams sound in a roller rink? Best skating music ever. I felt so deprived. I mean, can you give us a little K$sha at least? Jesus Christ.

Chris is not as much of a whiz on wheels as Kim and I, so he seemed fine with keeping a slow, staccato pace with Henry and Chooch.

“Look, it’s My Two Dads,” I laughed as Kim and I glided past.

“Or Two and A Half Men,” Kim added, as we smoked past them a second time.

Kim and I stayed out together for all the Couple Skates, which I’m sure Chris and Henry didn’t mind one bit. But I wasn’t sure we could pull off 12 and Under, so we joined the guys in the snack area, where Chooch was inhaling a Drumstick.

“I keep getting yelled at!” Henry complained. “The rink ref keeps telling me to take off my hat, because there’s such a great chance a fucking beanie is going to fall off my head!” he spat with sarcasm. (Now that I think about it, he probably didn’t actually say ‘fucking.’ Henry doesn’t swear that much; he was in the choir once, after all.)

“Oh my god, did he blow the whistle at you, too!?” I cried, hanging on to every drip of Henry’s disdain.

“No! I don’t know!” he yelled in a fluster.  “Oh look at that, it’s Immature Girl Skate. Better get out there!”

Soon it was time for Backward Skate and that is the ONE THING in the whole entire world that I simply cannot do. (Seriously! I’m typically an all-around wunderkind) I used to be able to, when I was a much more dainty young girl. But Kim assured me that it wasn’t something you lost the ability for, and strong-armed me into joining her and the other 20 or so skaters brave enough to partake in this unnatural direction of motion. It made me think back to the night before, when Barb, Mary, Kaitlin and I left the hockey game and the wind was so frigid and fierce that Barb decided to walk backward through the parking lot, and I remembered all those casually-strewn cadavers and acid-filled potholes in her path that I was too aloof to warn her about (she narrowly escaped them on her own), and I wondered if I would have the same luck.

Let me just say that no, skating backward does not so much come back naturally. I never did get into the groove of it; my feet felt awkward and I kept finding that my legs would start to bow out and I feared that it was only a matter of time I would be forced into a split.

“You have to look over your shoulder!” Kim laughed every time I would come close to reverse-humping a stranger behind me. I whined through the entire skate. And it just happened to be the LONGEST SONG EVER, too. I can’t even remember (on purpose) but I feel like it was possibly Strawberry Letter 23. That song can now and forever get fucked.

There was one Couple Skate left, and Kim graciously offered to sit with Chooch so Henry and I could make roller love together. It was Gentlemen’s Choice, but we all know Henry doesn’t get any choices. I grabbed his hand and used brute force to tug him alongside me. He lucked out, because when Gentlemen’s Choice was announced, he was clear on the other side of the rink, stumbling along at a snail’s pace with Chooch, so by the time he even made it to where I was standing, like a PRETTY LADY-IN-WAITING (only with less parasols and corsets and more Silly Putty ground into sweatshirts), the fucking song was half over.

“Too bad they already played my Bruno Mars jam! I wanted to skate with you to that SO BAD!” I cried.

“Yeah. Too bad,” Henry mumbled. One day recently, I made a play list with Bruno Mars’s “Grenade,” “Can’t Be Friends” by Trey Songz and the sultry Miguel hit “All I Want Is You” (featuring J. Cole! Don’t forget J. Cole!) and then played it on repeat for at least 7 hours and I guess that didn’t do much to persuade Henry to like any of those joints. I can’t even remember what wound up sound-tracking our Couples Skate, but it definitely didn’t inspire me to conceive a child in the men’s room. I do know it wasn’t All04-One’s “I Swear” because that had already been played during an All Skate. That song is so fucking lame, I’m so fucking mad that I was just reminded of it right now. Fuck.

4:00 approached us way too quickly, and it was time to return our skates. Leaving the rink, Chooch proclaimed that it still smelled like alcohol out there.

***

The five of us went to King’s for dinner. While Chris and Chooch watched ghost videos on Henry’s phone, the subject of Justin Bieber somehow came up.

“What’s he going to do when his voice changes?” I wondered out loud. “He’s going to be fucked.”

“Didn’t that happen to someone else?” Henry asked, trying to be a part of things.

“Um yeah. Peter Brady,” I said, earning a “fuck you” look from Henry.

***

Thank god I found Henry’s diary entry from that day.

Clearly my “to, too, two” tutorial has not helped Henry.

After spending the better part of this new year wilting under the spell of some unknown illness, I was so very ready to get out of the house and strap some old school skates over my Valentine hearted knee highs. Most of last Saturday found me spontaneously erupting with excited outbursts  like, “OMG skating tomorrow!” and “One more day, I can hardly wait!” and “This time tomorrow I might be finding a new lover!” What? Not like I’m actively looking or anything.

And then came Sunday, the official skating day. We had to wait for Janna and Blake to get here and of course I was acting a fool, pacing, swearing, running my hands through my hair. When they arrived, I could see Janna was in the mood to sit a spell, but I quickly ushered everyone back out the door and we were on our way to Neville Roller Drome, where Stacey was meeting us.

This was the first time any of us have been to this rink and it was AWESOME. Totally old school and un-fancified, just like I prefer. And even better – the Asshole Population was low. The rink was much bigger than the other place we used to go, at least based on my warped memory.

“OMG you guys, they’re playing my Justin Bieber joint!”

Stacey had read up on my retro posts and was not surprised when Janna kept flitting off to exchange her roller blades for another size or slip into the ladies room to do some blow. Stacey would laugh knowingly and then return to her desperate agenda of out-skating me.

There is just something so therapeutic about rolling across a warped wooden rink that even stale Top 40 songs sound Really Fucking Good. I didn’t think about any of that real world bullshit. Fuck bills, fuck the economy, fuck Jay Leno – for those three hours I was back in 5th grade with a blond side ponytail, white high-topped skates with pink wheels and rainbow laces, a Kids R Us sweatshirt decorated with puffy bears, flirting with boys at our school skating parties at Spinning Wheels. (And by flirting I mean skating past a boy and asking my friends, “DID HE LOOK AT ME? DID HE SEE ME?”) I used to live for those skating parties. “Heart and Soul” by T’Pau would come on and it’d be so intense. SO INTENSE.

We were prepared for Chooch to hate it, but the moment his plastic-wheeled feet hit the rink, he was like, “HELL YEAH BITCHES.” Henry looked pained because he was the designated training wheel, therefore unable to skate fast and free like his inner child-of-the-70s was begging.

Henry pushed Chooch down, derby-style, on purpose at one point, in hopes that it would dash Chooch’s skating dreams. But Chooch just laughed and got right back up again. Because he’s my son, and people that surf out of my uterus don’t give up. (Or in Chooch’s case, sliced-and-pulled out of my uterus.) After awhile, he was flat-out rejecting the steady hand of adults and even threw in some advanced jumps. That’s my kid – go big or go home.

When the octogenarian inside the music booth announced in his George Burns-voice that it was time for Couple Skate, I knew it was on. I shoved Chooch at Janna and barked, “Here, go take him to play a game or some shit” and then I dragged a reluctant Henry onto the rink, forced his hand into my sweaty paw, and pulled him around to the tune of some unknown country-cross over ballad. Even Stacey didn’t know what song it was, so it MUST have been as bad as it sounded. Henry looked pained, his thick brow all catawumpus and furrowed, stands of gray glistening under the disco ball-reflected lights. Then I started thinking about us being skating assassins and I couldn’t stop cracking up. I tried to invite Henry in on the joke but he declined.

The second couple skate was to the sexed-up tunes of some unidentifiable R&B track; as I circled the rink again with Henry (who looked violated), all I could think was that it sounded like a black Phil Collins. Thanks to the racy sax interludes, I felt like there was a chance I could be pregnant by the time the song ended and we left the rink. Stacey had worked up the nerve to invite Blake to skate with her for this couple go-around. They didn’t hold hands, but they sure looked happy….

….unlike here, where they were clearly in a skating coma. This was after Stacey attempted to raise the roof and promptly ass-kissed the floor. Definitely one of the highlights! I told her to just blame Henry, who was right behind her when it happened and I noticed this suspicious pattern of kids winding up sprawling on the rink with arms knotted and legs pretzel’d in Henry’s wake.

I won’t even try to deny the fact that I like that Ke$ha song, “Tic Toc.” And paired with roller skates and racing rainbow track lights, that song is THE ANTHEM. By the time it ended, I was like, “More! Again! One more time!”

After about an hour or so of straight skating, I yelled over to Janna and Stacey, “Hey, let’s go get a drink after this song!” But when it ended, the old man-DJ announced it was time for reverse skate and I was all, “Oh hell no, mama’s not missing this shiz” so Janna and Stacey, having already stumbled off the rink, hung out along the benches waiting for me. As that song was ending, I began to pass Janna and she yelled, “Are you coming?” but “Bad Romance” had JUST COME ON so I shouted back, “No, I love this song!”

Janna threw her arms up exasperatedly and retreated to the snack bar without me.

Let me just say that the ultimate Lady Gaga experience can be had on a roller rink. Possibly it would be better if someone had slapped an acid tab on my tongue, and I had all the Queen’s diamonds magnetizing toward my unitarded-torso, but who am I to ask for so much. Skating to Gaga for some reason triggered sweet memories of post-dinner basement skates  while Sanford & Son and One Day at a Time played on the small TV in the background. Those were the days.

Sadly, “Bad Romance” had run its course, so I very nimbly exited the rink with the grace of the holiest angel. Or Jennifer Aniston; she seems like she’d be graceful on skates. By the time I made it to the snack bar, Janna, Blake and Stacey were all sitting around a table, properly beverageinated. Realizing I didn’t have any cash on me and that Henry was still on the rink with Chooch, I pleaded for Janna to spot me. Hooo boy was she pissed. There went the arms! There went the eye-roll! There went the disgusted phlegm gurgle! Apparently, Blake had also asked her for money and she was starting to feel like a parental unit or something. What? I felt it wasn’t enough that the entire rink already assumed she was my son’s mom, why not try to finagle an allowance out of her too?

In the end, I got my Mountain Dew because it is written in the Bible that Janna cannot deny me.

Oh boy, soon it was time for Limbo! We kept trying to get Blake to go out there but he was all, “No, no, hell no.” Finally, we convinced him that it was the best idea anyone had ever had, even better than  putting peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, even better than making porn downloadable, even better than giving this asshole her own Internet property. So off Blake skated, to the back of a line in which he was the tallest by at least a foot.

When it was his turn, he split his pants.

Like, really split his pants.

Like, split his pants to the point where it was too obscene for me to even take a picture of it unless I wanted to have at least a dozen unsavory labels slapped on my record.

He handled it better than I would have. Had it been me, Henry would have had to rush home and clear the house of all prescription bottles, nooses, and razor blades.

Shockingly, witnessing Blake’s folly inspired Chooch to give it a go, and he tugged Janna onto the rink with him. I didn’t even realize what was going on until I saw them skating to the back of the line together. On his first skating foray, my kid did the Limbo and cleared the pole without falling on his ass. I was so proud! The guys holding the poles were like, “Dude you made it! You get to go again!” but Chooch was all, “Nah, cuz. It’s cool. I just wanted to do it that once.”

Then came the wobbly-voiced DJ again, reminding us that is was “Gentleman’s Couple Skate. This is now Gentleman’s Couple Skate.” I looked at Stacey and shouted, “Dude, that’s so progressive!” but then he came back on over the loud speakers to correct himself. It was actually Gentleman’s Choice. Since Henry doesn’t have a say in anything, I forced him to trade Chooch’s hand for mine. Stacey wanted Chooch to choose her, but he got real nervous and said, “I can’t! My hand’s all sweaty!” That means he really likes her. He’s shy around his crushes. He ended up skating with Janna, while Stacey kept Blake and his exposed crotch company on the bench.

Wow, that sounded so innocent.

Once the song was over, I was dismayed to find that Stacey and Blake had already exchanged their skates for their shoes, and even more dismayed to see that the session was nearly over. I was overheated as shit, but I wanted more! More more more! Everyone assured me that the world wasn’t ending and that we could come back soon. But soon for me would have been ten minutes later.

I miss it there so much already. And I didn’t even have any pizza! I was so busy skating that I didn’t stop once to eat lunch. That’s how awesome it was there.

Later that night, I said to Henry, “Remember when we couple-skated and you didn’t ask me to marry you?”

“I also didn’t ask you to skate,” he pointed out.