Sure a Razor scooter is perfectly safe on a flat, smooth surface while wearing a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, mouthpiece, a cup, and bubblewrap. Perfectly safe! But, when you take a razor scooter and use it on a bumpy, hilly road with no protection at all except the extra fat that most kids carry around….well, trouble will soon follow.
Note the “fat protection” did little to help.
So anyways, my brothers got these things for Christmas and the pain began. Mostly little falls where the freakin’ tiny tire would hit a rock or divet in the road and send one of us flying of the handle bars. Soon we started attempting to jump our bike ramp with it. All I will say is that that was neither safe nor wise. The true problem was the fact that I was about 16 years old and had friends who spent LOTS of time at my house. We would quickly grow bored with video games and frisbees and look for good ol’ fashioned trouble (See my post of Jackass). The Razor scooter provided ample room for trouble.
A certain tall, lanky friend and I decided to climb the hill in front of my house and race down. The hill was probably about a 35 degree angle. Nothing too exciting on a bike, but on two pieces of metal welded together and two inline skate wheels stuck on the bottom it was frightening. As soon as we got to the top of the hill I think we both knew we were being idiots, but being boys neither of us were willing to back down. We started down the hill rather timidly, but with each second that we didn’t fall we gathered confidence. Suddenly our worries weren’t about our lives, but about winning this race. The wheels shook as they speed down the hill, the wind made our eyes water, our hearts pounded in our chest, and suddenly three frisbees flew by our heads. Wait, what?
Yes, our other friend while watching us trek up the hill with razor scooters flung over our shoulders came up with a devious plan. He quickly grabbed a handful of frisbees and found a prime hiding spot at the bottom of the hill behind a bush. As we got about 3/4 of the way down the hill he jumped out from behind the bush and let loose all three frisbees. My friend racing behind my had nerves of steel that day and held his line, I meanwhile had my concentration on the bottom of the hill shattered, saw the discs flying at my face, and tried to veer slightly to the left. Only, there are no “slight” turns on a Razor scooter. You have one little wheel doing your turning, so my slight veer became me flying over the front of the scooter which itself made a quick stop. This was a very cool looking display of science and momentum, but it was also a very cool looking display of pain and anguish. I hit the pavement hard, but not hard enough to come to an immediate stop. In my mind I slid across the ground for a good 20 feet before coming to a slow stop.
The adrenaline flushed through my body and I had a moment like a mother who sees her child trapped under a car. Only my adrenaline was not focused on lifting a car it was focused on my friend. Luckily I love him and did not want to hurt him, and he took Jiu Jitsu lessons as a child and I don’t like being beaten up. So my adrenaline was not focused on lifting a car, or fighting my friend, but instead was focused on saying every curse word I had ever heard and making some new ones up all while screaming in my friends face. After my anger was calmed, and my friends stopped laughing we headed inside and let my mom bandage me up. Yes, my mom bandaged me up when I was sixteen. I was a momma’s boy and proud of it. I’ll blog on that later.
Weeks later after all my scrapes and bruises were healed up I would contemplate these event in my life. I definitely learned a few things. I learned that Razor scooters are the true killer, not cancer. I learned that I am only one skinned knee away from cursing out one of my dearest friends in the whole world. But most importantly I learned to never, ever, under any circumstance trust “one of your dearest friends in the whole world”.
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