Having completed a half marathon and done further damage to my stress fracture, I decided that it was time that I learned how to rollerblade.

Let me tell you something. It has been at least 15 years since I've skated on ice, and I've never been on rollerblades in my life. In fact, I have a hard time understanding the logic of putting wheels on your feet. Nonetheless, after seeing some punk-ass kids rolling around Wal-Mart with sneakers that had wheels in them, I thought to myself, "I want a pair of those! Here I am, like a chump, walking everywhere!" But after thinking about it, I realized I probably wouldn't be able to find those shoes with wheels in them in my massive foot size, and besides, they are the modern day equivalent of Lawn Darts and Tracer Guns... they seemed like a good idea at the time.

But anyway, I digress. After my brief infatuation with Heely's, I decided to think about rollerblades. I mean, if one wheel on the heel of a sneaker is awesome, imagine four wheels in a row on the bottom of a skate! What could possible go wrong?



So yesterday, I went to SportChek with the intention of purchasing my very own death shoes roller blades.

As I entered the store and located the wall of rollerblades, a nice young punk who looked like a young George McFly came up to me and asked me what I was looking for. "I want rollerblades."

"Well, you've come to the right place."

"Oh really? That's why you have a wall of rollerblades. Here I was, thinking I was in the wrong place. I've never rollerbladed before, and it's been about a decade since I've skated." Ok, so I lied to the guy... I didn't want to seem like a complete douchebag, and I figured telling him I hadn't skated in 15 years would make me look pathetic.

"Well, these ones are great for beginners. They'll help you go fast, and they're smooth, and probably all-in-all exactly what you're looking for. They're only $299.99."

"Uh, yeah... Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Huh? Think, McFly." I said as I rapped his head. "Do you realize what would happen if I strapped on fast rollerblades. I would probably die, and you would be held liable. You wouldn't want that, would you McFly?"

"Of course not, Biff. I wouldn't want that to happen." The little guy said.

"In any case, I'm looking for something a bit cheaper. And you know.... something that won't leave me too dead."

So McFly showed me a nice pair of rollerblades that were on for $159.99, down from $199.99. Still a bit more than I cared to spend, but hey, this is my obsession for the next six days we're talking about! Nothing is too much!

After putting on these wheeled contraptions, I stood up and started rolling... "Oh, this is fun." I said as I gently drifted away from McFly. "Just one question. Why am I going backwards?"

After he got me turned around, he told me to skate to the other side of the store, down this long and menacing aisle. I said sure, because well, I was already drifting in that direction anyway, why the hell not. So as I tried in vain to skate down the store, I tried to keep up a conversation. "So, how about that local sports team and or college?" I asked.

McFly looked stunned, and so I shut up and kept "blading."

Of course, my humiliation didn't end there. Oh no. As I neared the end of the store, this cute girl who worked there, probably 19 or so saw me, and started chuckling. Yup, that did a lot for the old ego.

"Yup... I'm kind of a big deal."

And then another cute staffer, about the same age and about 100 pounds soaking wet came up behind me and said "Don't worry, I gotcha if you fall."

Oh yeah, SportChek employs nothing but the best and the brightest. It's not like I'm 2 1/2 times her size or anything. I was tempted to fall just so I squish her like a bug... teach her a lesson in making fun of patrons. But I didn't think my fragile ego could take it.

Anyway, we got back to the rollerblades, and McFly asked me if I wanted to try another pair. "No, I'll take these." I said. My ego had suffered enough and another trip down the aisle of shame wasn't going to make things any better.

So I left the store, waving a tearful goodbye to McFly and all my new friends at the right place to get rollerblades. My bank card felt lighter... but I had rollerblades and a full suit of armor that would protect me from Roethlisberger's Motorcycle. Upon my arrival at home, I did what any 28 year old man does when he brings home a new, and potentially deadly toy home... I had a nap. I had just rollerbladed two entire lengths of the SportChek store, afterall.

After a very pleasant power nap, I decided to cook supper, grab a beer, and of course, try on my new rollerblades. It was a lot more complicated then it was at the store, but then I realized, at the store, McFly actually did the boots up for me. Yep, ego getting stronger by the minute.

While supper was cooking, I started doing laps around the house. In my mind, I was a picture of grace and style, inching around corners, ramming into walls and fans to stop, and guzzling a beer on those long straight-a-ways. Of course, my sister's constant laughter was an indication that I was not, in fact, as awesome as I thawt. But nonetheless, it was a beginning.

After supper, I decided to get all suited up and go for a short blade down the street... to, you know, show off to the neighbourhood kids.

Apparantly, rollerblading is harder than it looks. I mean, c'mon, it's sneakers with wheels! If I can run a half-marathon, I'm sure I can skate down a little road!

Yeah, not-so-much.

My first mistake was putting my rollerblades on inside. Because then I had to manuever two short, but very hard concrete steps to get down to street level. Faced with the terrible terrible fate of falling on my ass and starting to cry, I decided instead to do what anyone in my position would do. I jumped down onto the grass, doing a barrel roll and jumping up like I had meant to fall.

Then on to the next challenge... the curb. Ok, I know it's only 5" drop, but in rollerblade world, that's like 6". "How the hell do you use these things?" I asked a punk kid who was walking by... I saw the snicker in his eyes, but I wanted to be cool about it... I'm pretty sure I failed.

I decided to then just skate down to the end of the street, and back. Ok, the first obstacle was a speed bump, and I wasn't sure how exactly to tackle that, until I realized the bump didn't span the entire width of the road, and I could go around. As I was navigating the trecherous asphalt barrier, a kid, no more than five or six came flying by, using the speed bump as a ramp, and getting seven or eight inches of air from it. Yep, my is non-existant.

But I did manage to get to the end of the road and back (not before that kid lapped me once more), and back into the house without any injury. All in all, I had been on my rollerblades for about an hour (10 minutes if you don't count the time I was just sitting on the couch drinking a beer with them on). What did I learn? Stopping is harder than it looks, and there's a good chance the only thing that's ever going to stop me is traffic... I'll be playing frogger with the dump trucks, I'm sure.

I'll get better at this whole rollerblading fiasco. And you're going to read all about it here at Three Drunk Guys. From my initial purchase and uneasy beginnings, to me being dropped from a helicopter and rollerblading down Kilimanjaro's slop...