Orange Wheels of FIRE

Despite spending more time with these guys than Tyra's legion of pseudo-ingénues on America's Next Top Model with eachother, we still want to spend more. Last week we had a psychiatry resident retreat (i.e. a day off together). Entire hospitals were sans residents for we were at...guess where...a ROLLER SKATING RINK. I can't begin to tell you for how many weeks I looked forward to that glorious day.

After an incredibly awkward period of group activities that these things necessitate (believe me, I can't even BEGIN to tell you), we were accosted by a 6in taller, rolling fourth year resident fresh from an empty floor.

"Are you guys going out to skate?"

Everything within me tried to hold back from running to the rental desk as I rather briskly walked toward an impossibly far counter. The rental guy asked, "What size?" to which I cooly replied, "Hmm...11.5. That should do."
"Oh we don't have half sizes."

(flash images of less than elegantly rapid turns as I gaze toward rows of hypnotizing orange wheels)

"Oh wait, you want the standard four wheels? Oh."

(flash images of beautifuly elegant rapid turns of my grade-school youth)

"SWWWEEEET."

As I pushed past pleasantly bemused future mental health professionals the smell of rented leather and plastic quickly brought me back to at least a dozen birthday parties for the brace-laden, at least three of those parties were mine. How great. I fantasized about the turns, ducks, swishes, and of course aborted falls of the YMCA, Carousel Skating Rink, and many others.

My age betrayed me.

Apparently 25 year olds are much less malleable than 10 year olds so I thankfully aborted an immediate attempted fall. After 10 minutes of reintroducing my 4th grade fearlessness to my higher center of gravity and earnings potential, I was good to go. Much to the chagrin of Candace and Jenn I was turning, ducking, swishing, and of course aborting falls...which of course led to their own. Sorry guys. For the next couple of hours, we were playing pop the whip with people who normally would consider such a phrase a sexual fetish or satomasochism. There were relay races with the admirable efforts of our binary residency directors. I miraculously won a race against an intern, a second year, and a fast looking child and adolescent psychiatry fellow. The second year had a bit of a spill of the floor and as such I was obliged to replace him as the leader just before the finish line.

And the steal.

A great time by all. We interns topped it off with an afternoon of margaritas at Jenn's house so as to forget about the rapidly approaching soreness from the days activities. If I hadn't already begun planning my birthday party I would SO rent out the place for a birthday.

CLARO.