Ice Skating Adventure

Sasha, LeeAnna and I went ice skating the other night. It was a lot of fun. LeeAnna had never been before, and Sasha hadn't been in a long time, so I spent a lot of time hovering around them, trying to help them along. Unfortunately, the one time I decided to stretch my legs a little and go around the rink at a faster pace, I missed seeing LeeAnna in a spectacular twirling fall to the ice. I looked over, and there she was, sitting on the ice. She didn't manage to get up on the first try, I had to brace and give her my arm for support. She did fine for a while longer, but I caught her a couple more times before the night was over. And she had some pretty spectacular near-misses, involving lots of arm-flailing and a-l-m-o-s-t tipping over, but not quite.

Oh, and I assaulted a 10 year old boy. Not as much as I wanted to, but I just went with the spirit of the moment. This little punk was obviously an experienced skater, and was zipping at full speed all over the rink. This wouldn't have bothered me, except he had made a game of darting between the three of us, through spaces that were barely wide enough for him to get through. With Sasha and LeeAnna being timid skaters as it was, this nearly made them fall over every time. And freaked us all out. So, I told them "When you see him coming, hold hands!"

We were unable to do this. I decided to skate in the middle, and we were staying close enough together that he didn't try to go between any more. But towards the end of the night, we were drifting apart again, and he managed to piss me off just enough that I was willing to do something about it.

We were skating along, and the kid was horsing around with another brat up ahead. We drifted towards the center of the rink, to go around. As we were passing, he decided to dart out right in front of us, and try to go between Sasha and I. He made the mistake of skating about 6 inches away from me. I didn't even have to exert myself, I just stuck my arms out and grabbed him in a bear-hug (he only came up to my chin). I leaned down and said in the most hostile voice I could "YOU need to stop skating so close to us!!" and then I let him go. He said "Whatever!" in a tone clearly meant to tell me that I had no power over him, and skated off. I wanted to go after him and swing him into a wall, but decided that was carrying things a bit far.

He was still in the same area of the rink when we rounded our next lap. He hollered over at me "Don't touch me!" in a defiant voice. But he said it from 12 feet away. And I didn't have any more trouble with him the rest of the evening, although I was on high alert for it. I was mildly disappointed that I didn't get to tell him off again. Oh well!