Fun for the Whole Family...

...or at least, fun for a whole family of +18 year-olds.

What am I typing about?

ROLLER-DERBY

Yeah, that goes on the "must-do-at-least-four-times-in-your-life" list (hmmm... looking at my files and... that's not a very long list).

I was introduced to this fantastic world while on a weekend (last weekend) road-trip to Austin. Coy and I made our way out there to visit a friend of ours and a girlfriend of Coy's. The friend of ours, Janx, says, "Do you know what we're doing on Sunday night?"

After a couple of hours of guessing we found that, in fact, we did not know what we were doing on Sunday night. And we would not know until the janx (who had left about an hour and fifty-five minutes earlier because he had gotten board and irritated with us for trying to guess at all) returned home to tell us.

"Roller Derby," he said.

"Whoa," Coy said (in his best Keanu voice).

"Cool," I said. Then, "What's that?"

"According to some of the guys I work with, it's b*d *ss." the janx offered.

Janx and Coy then went on to explain this whimsical game of full-contact competitive rollerskating, and some of it's rules. Listening to them go on, I was at first excited, then I began to get a little bit nervous, It has been a long time since I strapped on a pair of rollerskates, and I've never really been very good at it. Are these guys going to be big...

"...and it's all women!" I heard them say in unison.

"Cool! ... Wait, what? Oh, this is a game we watch? Awesome!"

And then it was Sunday night, and we were there. The derby was sold out (interesting to note, I think women outnumbered the men even in the stands) and mayhem and misconduct ensued (also interesting to note, "Miss Conduct" was actually one of the players (also interesting to also note, she did, in fact, ensue)).

It was great! The teams were the Holy Rollers (my personal favorites, I even had a poster to cheer them on) vs. the Hellcats. And this was not a classic struggle of good vs. evil, as you may have supposed from their names. They were actually both pretty evil. And yes, evil triumphed. The Holy Rollers (or "bad boys of catholic school girls") rolled right over the Hellcats' forked tails.

It was a blast.

There was one kind of awkward moment for me, though.

As I said earlier, I was toting a poster for the Holy Rollers (it read, "Kick *ss, Holy Rollers"). Well, I was a very avid screamer and fan, so when the cheerleaders for the Holy Rollers would come over to our side of the stands, I would usually get a few appreciative nods and smiles from them. Well, one of these cheerleaders was a guy... and from his gestures and carriage, you felt safe in assuming that he was interested in... those of similar gender.

Well, at one point kind of late in the game, the cheerleaders made their way over and, as usual, I had taken up their cause, when the aforementioned cheerfellow looked right at me, pointed his finger... and twirled it.

Now, take a moment and imagine this gesture. Index finger pointed, then, just the finger (not the hand) twirling counter-clockwise. Try it yourself if you'd like.

I, not wanting to give him the wrong idea (or any of the hundreds of potentially available women in the stands), quickly looked away to one of the cheerleaders wearing a skirt. After a moment I resumed cheering as normal, only to have him, again... point and twirl.

After three or four of these... exchanges(?), I was feeling pretty uncomfortable so I turned to the janx to say something about it, but he had already noticed, and he looked over at me with an expression of equal confusion, then he looked down at my poster.

"Dude!" He said as he took the poster, flipped it over, and handed it back to me. Oops.

I'm still trying to weigh how all of that affected my ego.

Anyway, Roller Derbies are a blast, I highly recommend you go to one (or four) if ever the opportunity arises.

I noticed that Dallas has a league, too. Might have to check that out.

Coy took some pics, I'll post a couple of 'em. (I apologize for any repeats if you frequent both of our blogs.)