Day 55: At least I didn't fall on my butt

I'm Adam Sell and I have two months left before I leave Boston. My challenge? Do something in the city every day. Have ideas for my adventure? Send me an email.

I like to think I'm an athletically-inclined person. I really do. I can throw a ball, catch a Frisbee, kick a field goal, and block a shot. But for whatever reason, I never mastered roller-skating. It was always a choice between riding my bike or working on the roller blades. And without fail, I picked the bike. Just worked better for me. The discouragement of falling on my butt was a major motivator in my bicycle decisions. That and I could go a lot faster.

But every now and then, I got invited to a birthday party at the roller rink a couple of towns away. I was personally more into the Lazer Tag they had there, but going to a roller rink meant you had to, well, roll. So I can coast, but I remain liable to fall on my butt. This was the test tonight — can I complete a night at a roller rink without falling on my butt? And so I arrived at Chez Vous in Dorchester with this challenge in mind.

Chez Vous is an interesting little place just off of Blue Hill Ave. It's tucked in there with a dim sign across from a police station, and the first thing you see when you walk in is the unplugged metal detector off to the side. That made me wonder just what I was getting into, but I forged on in the hope that since it was unplugged, they'd decided it was unnecessary. The rink itself was dimly lit, and as a friend and I tugged on the ancient skates, we wondered just how well this was going to work out.

I did a few laps of the rink, lurching forward from time to time as I struggled to maintain my balance. I imagine I was the least graceful one out there, but I paid $10 to get in, and I was gonna skate. At least, until they made it a backwards-only bit. Yeah, that definitely wasn't going to happen. So we only got about 25 minutes of skate time before they made it impossible for us to continue, because I sure don't have the coordination to go backwards.

The verdict? I didn't fall on my butt. Onto my wrists once, sure, but I'm pretending that doesn't count.