Almost being the operative word here. Last night was my good friend Sharlene's dirty thirty birthday – a night that demands epicness on a variety of levels. She went with an 80s themed birthday to take place at the Roller Kingdom and then head over to Tronix for a little drunken fraudulence and dancing. Now, to say that a few heads turned when we arrived at the “kingdom” would be a bit of an understatement. Apparently they have not seen an excess of black lace, side ponytails, and neon spandex.

We walk in and I immediately feel a little out of place; mainly because the age of the average individual in the establishment was 8, but whatever. Is this the place were middle schoolers hang out to show how cool they are; busting out to classic jams from bands that they can't name. We get our skates – that have the distinctive smell of a men's locker room – and then head out to the floor. Now, I am not a roller skater. I use to roller blade all of the time, but per usual, the roller kingdom was out of blades. Some may argue that there is a not an incredibly big difference between roller skates and roller blades, but you would be mistaken. Simply put, roller skates have brakes on the front that I don't use and roller blades have brakes on the back allowing for a slow and graceful stop. Now a huge group of us are out on the rink and I am trying like hell to not die or worse, take a gigantic spill right in front of a group of 12 year olds and suffer through their taunts. Small children are zipping around us, weaving in & out. Then without warning, the “DJ” for the rink decides to inform us that there is going to be a BLACKOUT which basically means that they turns all the lights off, play some crappy music, and small infantile children decide to run around screaming bloody murder. The combination reminds me why I am not planning on having children like ever. I was holding on for survival while small children weaved in and out and zipped right past us.

When did it become cool to roller skate again?

Since it was an 80s themed birthday party we decide to bombard the DJ with exactly what we wanted to hear and the exact wording we wanted him to use when dedicating the songs to Sharlene. All of a sudden, Cyndi Lauper's classic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” pipes in through the speakers. This is when our story takes a turn for the uglier side of life. We of course start freaking out, and to the best of our ability, attempt to rock out on the dance floor. This band of stupid 10 year old boys have to of course say something obnoxious to prove how amazing they are and say “Ugh the 80s, join the rest of us in the 21^st century”. Now … I am not entirely sure what happened next. I think it was the combination of flashing strobe lights, the pain in my calves from bracing myself on the floor, or perhaps Mars was in retrograde but I basically went off on this ten year and started screaming and ranting while skating around the rink. From what I remember it went something like this;

“ uh excuse me you prepubescent choir boy. What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck can you do? I can buy porn, cigarettes, and liquor and enjoy them at my leisure if I desire. I can drive, vote, and gamble if I want to. Join the 21^st century you 8 year old Justin Bieber worshiping wannabe. Cyndi Lauper is TIMELESS so shut the fuck up and sit down”

Ok so I might have gone a bit overboard with the crazy psycho Mommie Dearest outburst but it was warranted and justified at the same time. No one interrupts me during a jam, I don't care who you are or how old you are.