1950’s Saturday
This past weekend, I spent my Saturday night roller-skating and eating in a diner. It was a 1950’s kind of night. Except for the following:
1. The roller rink was not built in the 1950’s; it was built in the 70’s. It still had the original carpet….and I think the original rink attendant. She was probably around 80 years old, and very serious about her job.
2. We were the worst skaters there. Children between the ages of four and fourteen were whizzing past us, spinning and skating backwards and moving in ways I can’t even move when I’m not on skates. A couple of eight-year old girls befriended Talley and taught both of us how to spin. [It wasn’t a very successful lesson.]
3. Taylor, one of our friends, nearly won a game of roller-skating dodgeball. His success stems from his strategic genius: he spent most of the game in the corner of the rink away from everyone else. But that all ended pretty quickly when he happened to get ahold of a ball. A ten-year old girl went whizzing past him and chucked it at her as hard as he could. So hard, in fact, that he fell down. And yet he did not hit the girl. Five minutes later, the same girl gets ahold of a ball. She is on the other end of the rink, away from Taylor, surrounded by people she could hit. But no, she extend the arm with which she is holding the ball and points at Taylor. Taylor sees this and attempts to get away before she can make it across the rink. The problem is Taylor is not that great of a skater so when he tried to accelerate too fast, it just kind of looked like he was running in place clumsily with a panicked expression on his face. The girl makes it all the way across the rink and gets so close to Taylor that she does not even have to throw the ball; she simply reaches out and touches him with it. It was fantastic to watch.
4. Lastly, we ate a combination of fried foods and banana pancakes at a 24-hour service diner. This was also fantastic.
Thoughts From an Uncomfortable College Mattress 