Another Year Older

With each passing year, I feel more and more disconnected with my youth. These days, I rarely understand the music, the lingo, the fashion etc.... So with this passing birthday, I couldn't help but feel like I was becoming an old fogey. For the past few months, I had been noticing a new fad of shoes that the young ones have been wearing, called Heely's. If you haven't heard of these before, they are basically shoes with wheels on the bottom to allow you to skate at will. So my beautiful loving wife thought it suitable to buy me a pair for my birthday. She informed me that it was a long and arduous search... I can only imagine the phone calls....

Deb: Hi, do you have any Heely's in size 12?

Shoe store: I'm sorry ma'am, we don't carry children sizes that small...

Deb: Um.... no, I mean size 12 for adults....

Shoe store: (shocked) Uh.... (giggling) Um.... you may want to try the internet...

Deb: Yeah, thanks.


So for about an hour or two on my birthday, I felt like I was a kid again. Funny how kids make things look so easy. If you've ever gone to a Target after school hours, I'm sure you've seen them skating around as if the floor were made of ice and they were auditioning for the Olympic ice skating team. Anyways, trying to use Heely's is like trying to roller blade without using your toes. I soon discovered that I was not born with this natural talent. You would think that this would stop me from wearing these shoes in public. You would be wrong. So as we are walking back to our car from dinner, my left foot stays solidly planted while my right foot decides to slide as far as it can forward, leaving me to do the splits, falling into Debbie's arms as if she were my knight in shining armor. I scurry to my feet and flee the scene complaining to anyone within earshot, "They really need to fix that sidewalk... Someone could really get hurt there..."

So the moral of the story is... Conrad is not 12 years old anymore.