Constants of skating

Had a delightful afternoon skating with Rebekah at Guptill’s. Despite my love of all forms of skating, I’d never actually skated in Guptill’s before — as a kid, there were other rinks closer to home, and as an adult, batches of pre-teens and teens prefer that Dad not tag along to a Saturday night skating party, and I’m hip to that. But this was just us and an afternoon outing, and Guptill’s lets you use your in-line skates, which I’d never done indoors before. Much fun. Whether you skate quads, in-lines or sharpened steel, there are some constants at every rink: the one guy (or woman) who’s way too skilled for the room, roller-discoing all over the place, backward; the old guy (that’d be me) who’s determined to use those corners and get the biggest lap of the rink possible; the girl who can sort of skate but only knows how to push off with one leg; the gaggle of hockey-trained boys for whom the rink direction is merely a prevailing tendency, not an actual rule; and the hundreds of little kids falling flat on their faces with every third step. Also: the song “YMCA” will be played at some point in your skating session, and this was true even before the song was released, some sort of weird retro space-time loop that makes it mandatory and eternal.

Now my quads will cry a little tomorrow, and I’m going to beg the daughter to let me go back in the rink on Friday night. I promise not to embarrass her. Really.