I love rollerskating

in the gym at the school there's a closet full of pretty much 3 things. A big cardboard box full of pool noodles. a cart full of basketballs. And lining the walls on the shelves are rollerskates.

And for as long as I've worked at the school I've never seen kids on these rollerskates. I assumed they have a unit in gym but apparently they don't do that anymore. So they never get used. Kids ask me at least once every two or three weeks if they can get them out and I always dismiss it immediately as crazy talk. No way am I gonna let kids (whether they know how to roller skate or not, I don't know which is worse) put on roller skates and move around the gym when I got like two soccer games and a basketball game and a football game and a little kid running around with pool noodles just slapping people and another kid is on a scooter holding on to a rope and another kid is spinning him around and five other things going on at once. No way. Not ever. Throwing in roller skates is a disaster waiting to happen. Not on my watch.

But then

today

one of my smartest, best-behaved kids looks in the closet and asks me, "can we get out of the roller skates?" And I know she's expecting me to say no the way I've said no dozens of other times. But I pause. And I look out at the utterly empty gym floor. All the other kids have gone home except another exceptionally well-behaved kid and the first kid's younger brother. And in the moment I can't think of a good reason to say no.

And I say, "yeah, okay". And she says "REALLY?" And I say "Let me be clear. This is the exception. Don't expect me to ever say 'yes' to this again. Don't ask me about it in public. Don't think you're entitled to this. Don't ever say 'but you let us that one time!' As far as I'm concerned this never happened. And you better enjoy it because it's never happening again."

That way when I let it happen again, it'll be on my terms and not because they wore me down. Because I know these kids are gonna brag about it and I'm gonna have to deal with this later from other kids.

But anyway I find a pair of size 9 skates and I put them on and I have music playing on the speakers and it's so cool. I love skating. I forgot how much I love skating.

So that was a fun development. None of the kids go skating much so they were helpless and flopping all over the place and either stomping or trying to run and not going anywhere. We'll see where this goes.