My epic fall

SO, last night was the first time in a great while that I fell in my rollerblades. It was also the first time in a VERY long time that I did a somersault.

Down Studebaker they're doing all sorts of road work to make all the driveways on the corners have those yellow, no slip bumpy things. When I rollerblade down there, I just have to go around all the corners. It's a big pain in the ass and last week it prevented me from catching up with the mysterious look-a-like biker for which I am still very bitter.

Naturally, all the areas where there's road work going on they have the appropriate labels and caution tape and signs. However, on the darkest part of the street in some random ass place, they apparently decided to work on the sidewalk as well.

So there I was minding my own business, rocking out and going quite fast since I still had a considerable distance to go before I came to the next corner when I see more signs, cones, etc. Here's the thing though, the placement of the signs was very ambiguous. How was I supposed to figure out that the "open trench" sign was also referring to the sidewalk when it was placed closer to the street and all down the rest of the road, the work was limited to the corners and to the street, NOT the sidewalk.

Plus, it was dark as hell and as far as I could tell, nothing but solid ground lay before me. WRONG. At high speed I began rollerblading through this section of the sidewalk when my keen senses tell me that my rollerblades are no longer in contact with the ground.

Somewhere in my head I must've told myself to shift my center of gravity lest I tumble through this dirt trench. From what I can tell, it all happened so fast, one of my rollerblades hit the dirt a good 6in below the rest of the sidewalk, I stumble, somehow "bounce", shift my weight, and the next thing I now I'm doing a somersault across someone's front lawn. Unfortunately, my knee hits the border of the trench and for a good while it looked like I was growing a third knee out of the right side of my right leg. Not to mention that I was covered with dirt and grass as one would expect for someone who rode straight into a dirt ditch then somehow rolled across the grass.

The first thing I do as I laid sprawled across someone's lawn is look up at the house to see if anyone was watching. Luckily, I was spared that humiliation, but I'm sure someone heard me shout " MTHR FCKR!!" at one point during my fall.


The trip home was almost another disaster since I was so focused on avoiding sidewalk trenches that I completely forgot about the one sidewalk square that's like 2in below the neighboring two squares. As I rollerbladed over it, my front wheel hits the next square which is 2in higher and I stumble again nearly repeating my previous fall. Fortunately, I was able to catch myself and play that one off.


I look forward to the end of the road construction so that I may once again rollerblade unimpeded down Studebaker where my only worry is having a heart attack from getting so surprised at dogs that appear out of no where and that bark and run like crazy after me in their fenced front yards.

Go me. With my luck and coordination, I'm very surprised that it didn't turn out worse. I'm convinced that it was the somersault that saved me from damage, just like when you tilt the joystick forward when your character is falling from a great height and you can roll to avoid taking damage. Who says you can't learn anything practical from video games??

Lesson learned: trenches=bad and rolling=save your life.

CHEERS! :D