i once owned a pair of black, neon green & pink rollerblades. (if the colors alone don't suggest that they are my favorite, you don't know me.) i think those blades got more use 6-8th grade than any blades to have come before. easily 4 times a week they could be seen strapped to my little tan pre-teen legs each summer.
rarely do i do anything alone as an adult, so as a teenager, i did practically nothing alone. so, naturally, these blades had blade buddies who rolled just as many miles as they. this second pair of blades were strapped 3 times a week to the feet of my bestfriend bethany. more often than not, we would wear matching blue & pink tank tops, with matching blue & pink bandanas.
can more infinite coolness be found elsewhere?? just try it.
at the garage sale where we sold all the rest of our stuff, before i was most rudely up rooted to las vegas, they promised, as they handed those most precious 4 wheeled beauties over for probably $10, to buy me new ones when we moved.
i don't think my parents know this, but i cried over those stupid blades. i remember being very lonely one day after we moved- one of many to come- and just wishing i had my blades; something familiar, something loved with many many tender memories attached. not yet had my mom fulfilled that desperate promise of replacing them someday. i wept bitterly- emotional attachment to inanimate objects at its finest.
my very next birthday, a large square K2 box was given to me, with some really nice expensive rollerblades held therein.
i'm pretty sure my mom is fully aware they have been used probably 3 times. i kinda resented them. how dare these silver & red shiny things think they could replace the crappy, plastic, beat up, blister-giving, blades of my adolesence???
before today.
today i bladed with my roommie nicole to bolsa beach & back. in the sunshine, next to the surf, gliding merrily along the ocean. we laughed & danced to our ipods. it was amazing. quite possibly the best two hours spent on a saturday thus far.

we sold those blades when i was 15. i'm 23. and i finally am not bitter.
thanks, mom for the nice blades. i appreciate them.