i’ve posted a couple random stories on here about childhood shenanigans involving becky, my childhood best friend. although, i still consider her a best friend, despite the fact that we never get to see each other (she has a habit of moving to foreign countries). she’s one of those friends who i can go years without seeing and then when we finally get to hang out again, it feels like nothing at all has changed. and we usually laugh. a lot. i love you, becky!
anyway, so… we were little. and stupid. and we had rollerblades. but for whatever reason, on this particular night, i did not have my rollerblades with me. we were at becky’s house, we wanted to be at my house, but i am guessing i didn’t want to walk.
and we thought we were clever.
no rollerblades? no problem! just stick 2 children on 1 pair of rollerblades!
and by 2 in 1 pair, i do not mean she wore one and i wore the other. i mean, she wore the pair, and i stood on top of them, as we flew down our block (we lived on the same street, which happened to slope downward the entire way) full speed ahead.
did i mention we were stupid?
i should also mention that neither of us had helmets, a safety measure i should still practice TODAY, even as a 24 year old. some people are nodding their heads right now.
oh, and i should also mention that our neighborhood didn’t always have curbs at the end of the roads. until this. they implemented nice, sturdy, concrete curbs a little before this all happened. something else we didn’t think consider.
we also didn’t take into account that when there is an 80 pound human standing on one’s rollerblades, it is not so easy to brake. minor details.
so there we were, flying down the hill, wind in our faces, reveling in our own brilliance, and then we noticed a car coming down the next street. driving at 35mph toward the same intersection we were inevitably about to cross (again, no brakes).
at this point, we had already whipped past my driveway and were only a few feet away from the intersection. can’t stop, can’t go faster, and it just so happened that becky and i got “lucky” (i’m using that term loosely because this entire scenario fails to be anything close to lucky), and the oncoming car missed us by just a hair.
just a hair, meaning seconds before the car was about to nail us, becky and i FLEW across the road, hit the curb on the other side, which sent me face first into the ground, and becky went airborne (and then straight into the ground).
she broke her finger. i got a little banged up, but nothing serious. and that night, we decided we would not tell ANYONE what really happened, because parents tend to get angry when they find out that the emergency room bill wasn’t because you fell down the stairs, and was instead because you and your idiot friend decided to ride a pair of skates together into oncoming traffic.
when i have children, they will not be getting rollerblades.