Death by Skating

Tonight, I realized something: I have a death wish. I took my 5-year-old to the skating rink- That's right the skating rink. Don't get me wrong. I'm a proficient skater. It's not death by skating I seem to be asking for. It was more like death by drowning in a sea of hyperactive children. The place was a mad house! I believe every parent in town drops their kid off at the skating rink on a Friday night for a night of blessed freedom. What do these little heathens do? They create mad chaos.

It was a continuous, flowing, writhing mass of flailing arms, legs, and attitudes-Attitudes with a capital "A" for aggression. Just watching the crowd jerk and move made me nauseas. When one heathen child stuck their leg out to trip me, I fell forward and managed to catch myself, but my finger tip barely touched a young girl of about eleven. She immediately said, "You smacked me" with defiance as if she wanted to fight. She tried to stare me down, but I ran away.

As I dodged her for the rest of the night, I came across other heathens ready to take me down. A 4-year-old boy turned to me at one point, wielding his glow stick, and said, "Look out, woman, or I'll slice you." Okay, that's not really what he said. It was really, "Where's the bathroom?" but I knew what he really meant. I could see it in his eyes.

My ears are still ringing. They're not ringing from the extremely loud rap music from the mediocre sound system. They're ringing from the yelling and screaming of hormone driven tweens. Shouted phrases such as "You go, girl-go on", "Get off my ass", and "UH-UH, you crazy, if you think I'm going out with you" will haunt me in my sleep for days.

Ahh, the adolescent meat market. The place to pick a fight, find a friend, or snort pixie sticks in the bathroom. The place was packed so that it was hard to walk through the non-skating area. The funny thing is there were about four cars in the parking lot, one of them mine.

Just when I thought all the kids there were heathen brats, I was approached by a boy that looked about 12. He said, "Eh, he wants to know if you'll go with him" and pointed at his equally young friend. So, they're not all heathen brats, some of them are brazen heathen brats. I laughed and tried to skate away, but I fell on my butt. Well, not really on my butt. I actually landed on a child who had slid under my skates, causing me to fall.

I figure the reason for this Lord of the Flies Skating Rink is simple. It's the cheapest child care in town on a Friday night. For just $6, drop the kids off and fly away-fly far far away! There were maybe two parents, other than me, in the whole crowd.

At ten, the skating stops, and it's skates off for a dance, because that's why people go to a skating rink-to dance. Fortunately, we abandoned the sinking ship before the dance began. When children began flinging each other around like discus, I decided it was time to go. As I changed out of my skates and into my shoes, a near-death frazzled employee rolled up to open the locker next to mine.

"I can't stand working Fridays," she said as a flung child flew over her head. "Last week we had nine fights in the last hour."

I dodged the next soaring child, grabbed my son's hand, and headed out of there. Next time I'm looking for a fun family outing on a Friday night, I think I'll look for something a little safer-like a shooting range for blind people.