It seems like the older I get, the crazier I become.
Which isn’t very normal, since most people tend to mellow down as they age. They become more conservative, engage is less risk-taking activity, and generally become more boring.
I can’t say that I’m that old yet - still a long way from middle age, not even eligible for an HDB flat unless I get married, which isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.
Then again, teenage girls still have crushes on me. (And boys too.)
Instead of getting myself involved in high-risk activity with underaged kids, I take up something relatively less risky - rollerblading.
I was never particularly interested in rollerblading (I hate the term ‘in-line skating’) as a teen, but for some reason I decided it was time for me pick it up.
Perhaps I wanted to learn to ice skate, after watching over many days in subconscious envy many ice skaters gracefully gliding round the rink, and learning to rollerblade would help me learn to ice skate, or perhaps I wanted to rewire parts of my brain by learning a new skill - the result of reading too many neuropsychology books.
In any case, rollerblading it was.
At the rollerblade shop, the cute shop assistant almost convinced me to buy more than I planned for. I was already prepared to leave with the big yellow cardboard box containing my new pair of rollerblades, but she told me the importance of the knee pads. And elbow pads. And wrist guards. And helmet. To protect that fabulous brain of mine.
But that same fabulous brain decided that, someone grown like myself with significant self-control would rollerblade safely, and any fall would be minor enough to render those equipment superfluous.
Which proved to be true the first few times I rollerbladed, since anyway my balancing abilities was so pathetic that I would have fallen if I had gone any faster.
In fact, in my first ever session one night (I only blade at night to preserve my anonymity), I never fell at all. There were plenty of close calls, but no falls. Nor did I fall on my second night. Nor third.
Within a couple of weeks I was already doing decently well. In fact I was already as good or even better than this friend who had far more blading experience whom I subsequently sometimes went blading with. Incidentally this friend wants to get an HDB flat with me, and I have so far declined, but that’s another story.
As they say, pride comes before a fall.
One night, I decided to venture up this very long slope near my place. As a kid, my parents would warn me against cycling or skateboarding down that slope because it was simply too dangerous - too many other kids had met serious accidents going down that legendary slope.
Which meant that I had to rollearblade on it.
Being a beginner, I decided to blade down only a quarter of the slope (about 30m), which would be quite safe. And down I went.
Within 3 seconds, the rate that my speed was increasing was so high that my brain was going overdrive trying to figure out how to slow down.
I couldn’t use the rollerblade brake pad because the speed was already too fast and the road would wear it out in no time. I eyed the grass patch up the kerb on my left but I’d be sliding on the grass for quite a distance while collecting a whole lot of mud on my butt.
The obvious choice was just to make a right turn, as gradually as the width of the road would allow, and go back up the slope and let gravity slow me down.
So I turned right. But I was going so fast that I couldn’t stay controlled enough to make the U-turn. Instead I was hurtling towards the refuse centre, otherwise known as the rubbish dump. And just as I crossed over to the right side of the road, my right rollerblade went over one of those tiny reflectors embedded in the road. Well, they’re tiny for a car, but not so tiny for rollerblades.
The reflector did it. I spun around in high speed before landed on my ass. The momentum ensured that I didn’t just land on my ass - I slid for another foot or so.
The first thing I did was to make sure there were no eyewitnesses. With my ego intact, I examined my ass.
It turned out to be easier than expected because at the exact spot I wanted to examine, the fabric from my pants was conveniently torn away, revealing my bleeding ass. It was burning hot.
It’ll be a while before I visit that slope again. Maybe I should take up knitting.
