Couples Skate

Welcome to my flashback. There aren't that many memories I have of my childhood (mostly by choice) but there are some that are very dear to my heart. Going to the skating rink on Friday or Saturday night, both if you were lucky, for one!! Since it's already been established that I am a frigging iPod fool and that Limewire is my Lifewire now, you must know that I have spent a LOT of time searching for songs. It started out harmless enough, I was looking for some of the newer Top 40 stuff that I was too cheap to buy and knew that even though I loved one particular song from a CD that more than likely the rest of the CD that I would have chucked out upwards to $20 on will suck the proverbial ass.

Seriously it's not like back in the day when you bought a CD or rather a cassette tape and the whole thing was good and you could listen to it on a continuous loop. Ahhh the good old days!

Anyway, back to my music search and why it caused me to flashback to going to our small town's dinky little skating rink. I remember going to this place with one of my friends and she and I were convinced we were the shit. We would get there early so we could get the better pair of ugly as sin brown skates that didn't smell like trash was rotting inside them. We would lace up and head to the bathroom to adjust our banana clips and decide whether or not we wanted to trade swatches. After that we'd hit the floor. I was always jealous of her because she could skate backwards and for the longest time I was too chicken shit to try it. We would play Pac-Man for a little while just hoping some of the cute guys from the other schools would show up. After about three packs of Fun Dip and grape snow cones that were mostly just syrup with a little bit of ice thrown in, the fun would start.

This place, even though it was pretty rinky dink, would always play the "cool" music of the time. We would gather up with all the other kids that showed up and skate our asses off. We would separate into groups for the "girls choice" or "guys choice" skate and then we'd attempt the races. The individual races weren't that bad and as long as this one chick didn't show up it was pretty much anybodies race. If the blond chick was there then only a newbie who didn't know she was fast as frikkin' lightning would try to race her and get smoked. We'd all just point and laugh for go get another Blow Pop. (Sugar consumption was a must for proper skating technique......wasn't it??)

After the individual races were the team races. This sucked most of the time, especially if you were the one that had to crouch down while the other person or two to three other person's pushed you. That was a sure bet skint elbow and probably both knees as well as the probability of a few rolled over fingers and crushed ribs from all of them falling on you as you went down for the burn. This would always hurt like ho-lee-hell, you NEVER wanted to be the pushee.....NEVER! You didn't want to get too sweaty during the races anyway because after all of that it was just a matter of time before the light on the back wall would flick on and it would say "Couples Only" skate. Woo freakin' Hoo!

This was the one thing most of the girls would look forward to all night long. We would try to have fun all night leading up to this but still keep it in the back of our minds that the guys were all watching us and deciding who they wanted to pick for the Couples Skate. Let me tell you, it is really, REALLY hard to suck your stomach in and poke what little boobies you had at the time out and skate and try to do that fancy crossover foot movement while avoiding the huge hump in the floor in the first turn all at the same time, and try to appear attractive and maintain your balance. (How's that for a run-on sentence Mrs. Webb??!!)

Now if you were lucky you were chosen and could hold hands with some super cute guy and make all the other girls green with envy and if you weren't that lucky then you would promptly skate into the bathroom with the other rejects and scribble something nasty about another girl on the bathroom wall. Good times. Goo-h000-oood times indeed.

All of this stemmed from me searching for music and thinking, "damn, I remember skating with so-and-so to this song" or "they use to wear this out at the skating rink!". Needless to say I never skated to "Every Breath you Take" or "Almost Paradise". By then I had fainted in the back corner from sucking in my gut and skating at the same time for way too long. (I kid.....a little)

Anyway, here's a sample of my iPod's Couples Only Playlist that I can remember skating to (or watching other's from the sidelines wishing I was):

Lost in Love - Air Supply
Making Love out of Nothing - Air Supply
If you Leave me Now - Chicago
Hard Habit to Break - Chicago
You're the Inspiration - Chicago
Hard to Say I'm Sorry - Chicago
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Candle in the Wind - Elton John (This was a skating rink staple!)
Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton (Danced to this one at prom too, LOVE.IT.)
Sea of Love - The Honeydrippers
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
When the Lights go Down in the City - Journey
Open Arms - Journey (swoon)
I'm Gonna Miss You - Milli Vanilli - (yep, it's on there along with two other Milli Vanilli greats)
Without You - Motley Crue (favorite.song.in.the.world.)
Next Time I Fall in Love - Peter Cetera (had a major crush on him back in the day)
Another Day in Paradise - Phil Collins
A Groovy Kind of Love - Phil Collins (they wore this one out!!!)
In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
Every Breath You Take - The Police
Fooled Around and Fell in Love - Rod Stewart
Greatest Love of All - Whitney Houston
Where do Broken Hearts Go - Whitney Houston
Didn't we Almost Have it All - Whitney Houston
One Moment in Time - Whitney Houston (she was huge in the skating world!)

Ahhh, good memories, good tunes. I finally got my own pair of skates one year for Christmas and no longer had to wear the smelly ones from the rink. I had the red laces and red pom poms with the bells on them and would have been the coolest thing on eight wheels except they were Strawberry Shortcake skates. Damn. Couldn't win for losing back then on most days.

Thanks for stopping by for my flashback, hopefully you have one of these songs stuck in your head, I will now switch the sign in the back.

ALL SKATE

***Humming inside my head***

You're the meaning in my life

You're the inspiration

You bring feeling to my life

You're the inspiration

Wanna have you near me

I wanna have you hear me saying

"No one needs you more than I need you"

wooh o o o o oo