Yesterday I pulled out my rollerblades and went for a quick spin around the block. While I was on my rollerblades, I began to think about all the experiences my rollerblades have taken me through. While some of you reading this (the whole 3 or 4 of you) may mock the fact that I still own rollerblades AND use them, I know I'm cool. Anyhow, I decided to write about one particular summer where rollerblading was THE COOOOOLEST thing to do. I mean, everybody who was anybody was rollerblading.
Let me take you back...almost 4 years ago. It was the summer of 2004. I had just completed my first year of college and had been offered the opportunity to stay at school over the summer as an intern at the Student Activities Office to help prepare for the upcoming school year. I'm not gonna lie. It was a pretty sweet gig. Sure, I made barely any money, but I got to live on campus for free, got to eat in the dining hall for free (Our cafeteria food was edible most days), given money to eat out when the cafeteria wasn't open, worked about 4 or 5 hours a day (I usually rolled into the office around 10, took lunch at noon for an hour, and worked back in the office until 4ish or so), and the best part....worked with my 3 best friends for the summer. The summers at our school were pretty low key. We were among maybe 10 students who lived on campus and there were only a few classes going on throughout the summer. We basically had full reign of the campus. All the staff knew us and loved us. At one point during the summer we even began our own radio show, as part of our internship of course (our university had a radio station) and played fantastic music, told great jokes, and got most of the staff to listen and call in.
The evenings on campus could get a little slow, though. Luckily, we went to school in a most FABULOUS city (I'll write more about my love for Columbus in another post), so most evenings we found stuff around the city to do, but there were the occasional nights when we would just hang out on campus. We soon discovered that 3 of the 4 of us owned rollerblades. Katie, Katie, and myself would skate around campus in the evenings for fun. Most nights, it was fun but rather uneventful. And then one evening, we decided to get adventurous...
Sitting behind the main hall to our university was right in front of a giant Hill. For some reason, one night we decided it would be a good idea to rollerblade down The Hill. We had no helmets, no wrist pads, no knee pads, etc. Basically we were a public service announcement waiting to happen--"Lookie kiddies, this is what happens when you don't wear a helmet" cut frame to 3 girls sprawled on the asphalt. I'll save the suspense now, luckily it didn't end quite that bad. Anyhow, we stood at the top of The Hill for quite some time contemplating if we were really going to attempt this feat. I think at this point we had also forgotten a pretty important fact--earlier in the year the Katies had been in a car accident and one of the Katies had broken her neck and was told by doctors to avoid all contact sports, rollercoasters, anything that could potentially hurt her neck again. Finally, I looked at the two Katies and announced that I would make the sacrifice and be the brave one to go first. I'm sure they could see the fear of death in my eyes. As I started down the hill, I quickly gained speed and quickly realized I had no idea how I was going to stop. I tried to turn around to tell them both not to follow (Heck, I needed someone uninjured who was going to help me when I took a huge splat), but it was too late. They had already begun their descents down The Hill. I made a split-second decision to jump into the grass at the end of the hill and safely wiped out in the grass. Katie (broken-neck Katie) made the same decision. When we both got up we turned around to see the other Katie standing perfectly fine at the bottom of The Hill. We started to laugh because she was the cautious one out of all of us and she made it down The Hill with no problems at all.
Okay, so I'll admit. Typing this out, it's not nearly as exhilarating or hilarious as the real experience. But you have to see how ginormous The Hill was to understand. Our Cross Country team later utilized The Hill for workouts because it was so steep and so long.
So that's my rollerblading story of the night. It was awesome. We were cool. Oh, and PS--one night we were rebels and rollerbladed through the main university hall...without getting caught. You can go really fast on newly waxed floors. Now you think I'm cool. Admit it! :)
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