ISellOranges.com

I went rollerblading today.  I think I did something like 18 to 19 miles but I could’ve gone for a bit longer.  I didnt do as well as I had hoped since the last time I wore rollerblades was nearly a year ago.  I fell once and I have the scars to prove it, trail 1 v me 0, and it really looks a lot worse than what it really is.  Sure I have swelling and there is a couple layers of skin missing on my left arm, right above and below my elbow, as well missing layers of skin around my left thigh, in fact, it looks like a cheese grater just scrapped the hell out of it.  I was going too fast and I run into a rock, small enough to not be seeing by my rapid scanning of the road, yet big enough to make me lose my balance and hit the pavement hard.  Once again I have got to stress the importance of why I wear protective gear and why I wear it all the time, my helmet has new scars to prove my point.  If I had been wearing my elbow pads, I will probably only have road rash on my left shoulder, I think I failed to list that “injury”, and my thigh will still look the same.  The one thing that was strikingly difficult to both believe and process properly was the fact that some random guy that was traveling on the adjacent road to the trail actually stopped and asked me if I were ok.  Not only did he stop in the middle of the road and asked me repeatedly if i needed help, but he then went to the nearest intersection and made a u-turn and once again stopped and asked me if i needed assistance.  Sure I was bleeding, sure it looked a hell of a lot more painful than it really was, sure not everyone is a fucking asshole and will not stop to lend a helping hand to someone in need; however I also know that this is the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area and this is rare and almost completely unheard of, even under the most favorable of circumstances.  I was shocked and delightfully surprised to see this happen and for a few minutes it even made me forget that I was in fact bleeding and the longer I kept on rollerblading the more, the more and more the swelling hurt in small increments.

The day wasnt all a fairy tale story though, I wish it would’ve continued like that though, but I was bound to be reminded that there are people that, are such a contrast to the guy that tried to help me, and are incredibly in such an abundance in this area, can be assholes.  If you want to avoid reading something horrible, please stop reading here.  As I approach the end of the trail I run into a half-decapitated squirrel that just “happened” to be on the middle of the trail.  I stopped, grabbed a stick, and moved the squirrel off the paved part of the trail.  To my surprise, when I was moving it, I noticed that something wasnt quite right and as I stared at it the answer became painfully obvious.  The squirrel was run over by some bicyclist earlier that day, you could see a tire imprint that run all along its little neck.  I was suddenly disgusted, appalled! what kind of sick fuck wouldnt stop for some living creature, even if it is not a “rational, thinking” human, if they happen to be on the middle of a paved trail?  I was suddenly reminded of the time I saw some bicyclist hit a small tortoise with his back tire because he couldnt be bothered to neither stop, nor slow down.  His precious lap time would have suffered otherwise.  I dont think he felt the same way when I caught to him with my bike and proceeded to kick his back tire and said “it feels good, doesnt it?” Now, dont get me wrong, I am not claiming to be anything special, or even that I am better than any of those I’ve deemed “assholes” in this little rant of mine, but come on people! is your training (or your fun, if in fact someone run over that squirrel for shits and giggles) that much more important than the squirrel that you rather run it over than stopping or even applying your brakes just a bit?

I should shower.