I went in search of a decent grinder and found myself face-first in a bush.

Today I went in search of an Italian Grinder ("grindah"). My first attempt was disappointing, but I will try try again. It has to have the perfect combination of salami and ham, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. This one missed it by a mile. So I guess I'll just have to keep eating processed meats until someone gets it right, dammit.

In the meantime, I decided to go roller skating. You know, to work off the grindah. I put on a pair of hotpants and then took them back off again because I thought that maybe this little town wasn't QUITE ready for a middle aged chick in red underpants roller skating around their neighborhood in circles.

(sigh)

So then I put on some shorts (which, to be honest, were not much bigger then the hot pants) and strapped on the skates, and tried to hit the road. But the road ? Was very bumpy. This isn't a euphamism - the pavement was in such terrible shape that my teeth were rattling.

And that was on the basketball court.

So I staggered up the hill out of the schoolyard and went in search of a surface that was actually skate-able. I finally found an area of relatively smooth asphalt, and started skating. And almost as soon as I had hit stride, I heard the shouts.

I slowed down and tried to hear what they were saying.

"HEY ROLLERBLADE LADY! HEEEEYY ROOOOLLLLLEEEERRRRRRBAAAAADELAAAAADYYYYYYYYYYYYY! HEY OVER HERE HEEEEYYYY YOOOUUUUUUUU ROLLLLEEEEERRRRRRRRBLAAAAAAADE LAAAAAADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

This would have been way less obnoxious had I been wearing rollerblades. But as Jersey said at one practice, roller girls are gay enough without rollerblades. I believe she was referring to our team members' sexual orientation rather then the actual sport of roller derby when she made that comment, but the point was a good one.

Roller girls don't wear fucking rollerblades. No. I wear fucking QUADS with bearings and laces and shit. I am OLD SCHOOL.

So I went to stop, in order to clear up their significant confusion about roller BLADES v.s. roller SKATES. And I couldn't.

I was headed downhill, and I kept trying and trying. I snowplowed and t-stopped and even tried that damn tomahawk (which is ILL ADVISED ON A DOWNWARD SLOPE - NOTE TO SELF DO NOT TRY NEW SHIT WHEN YOU ARE PICKING UP SPEED) which ony managed to slow me down by sending my headfirst into a bush. (And that isn't a euphamism either. While many rollergirls are indeed gay, I am not, and haven't found myself facefirst in a bush before today. Not even that one time in college.)

So I decided that I would just have to straighten out those little bastards later, and I left the area (despite my best efforts to stay put). I rolled back to the park, and picked up the kids and my mom where I had last seen them. We all headed towards home, with me muttering about "fucking rollerblade pieces of shit" and trying to figure out why I hadn't nailed the tomahawk even though I thought I had finally figured it out.

And that's when I realized. Sometime during my search for better pavement, my toe stop had come off of my skate. So when I tried to tomahawk and I went flying off into the bushes? It was because only one stopper had engaged.

Fucking rollerskates.