A Monday Adventure, Filled With Fabulous Sights
Monday was quite a day.Through an irregularity in Eli 9.7s school schedule, his spring break was extended by one day, so he had Monday off. I skate on Monday at noon, so he came with me.
We walked into the rink, and the first thing I saw stopped me in my tracks. "Oh my God," I said.
"Dad, what?" Eli asked, looking in the direction I'd turned. "OH MY GOD!" he said, breaking into giggles.
It sets the tone for the skate when the first thing you see at the rink is this:
(click on the photo for a larger version)
That's a person skating with a dummy wrapped around them.
"Mine, too," Eli said, laughing. "What is GOING ON out there?"
"I don't know," I said, laughing. "There's nothing even in my imagination that can explain this."
Preparing for the International Human-Body Pillow Pairs Skating Championship? A scene from an adult film? What on Earth was going on out there?
Before we even hit the ice, the erotically entangled pair had left. I didn't see if they were holding hands.
It was a great day to skate. There were only about half a dozen other skaters, and after we warmed up, I had an idea. "Hey, I'll time you skating a lap forwards, then backwards," I said. "Then you'll be able to see how much you've improved in a few months."
For safety, I told him that he only needed to skate outside one of the two curling circles on each side, so it wasn't quite a full lap. He skated both, then came over to where I was standing. "Now you," he said, smiling.
"I can only do swizzles backwards," I said.
"That's okay," he said. "Just do forwards."
Instead of a standing start, like he did, he let me start at slow speed, and I skated as hard as I possibly could. Then I skated over to him. "Dad!" he said. "Your forwards speed is almost exactly the same as my backwards speed!" Two hundredths of a second difference, to be exact.
I'll take that. For a giraffe on skates, that's a milestone.
After skating, we went to Chuy's lunch, and again, we were greeted by a fantastical sight: the fellow who seated us was sporting a handlebar moustache straight out of the nineteenth century, with period-appropriate sideburns.
Without too strenuous an examination, even his clothing passed muster, although I must admit I was hoping he would go full-on anachronism and wear knickers and a cap, pull a pocket watch out of his vest, and casually mention his velocipede parked in back.
I did manage to stop myself before I asked him to fire up the time machine or head out for a rousing game of rounders, but only barely.
<< Home