Rolling

So...last night I had A Cultural Experience: I went to Roller Derby.

It was loud. The speakers were like to blow my ears out. I felt sorry for the teeny tiny baby five rows in front of me. Her mother's bangs were in a doubled-over ponytail. I also felt bad for the girl in the charteuse plastic pants, mostly because they didn't fit well and because her top was something a six year old should never wear. I saw all sorts of characters. I'm just glad Derby ended when it did so we missed the naked bike parade that P-town experiences every year.

It took me one "bout" to figure out what in the heck was going on and how it was scored. Both teams saw wild comebacks. There were some mean girls! I am telling you, I would not want to be a jammer for love or money. Some of the names were slightly risque, but I was actually rather impressed at the cleverness of some...especially the ones that looked one way on paper, but when you said them out loud, you "got" it. There were a lot of animals featured...Scald Eagle and Blast Unicorn were just two.

Readers Digest Roller Derby 101: (skip if you are not interested)
There are two teams of girls wearing roller skates and protective gear. Each team fields five players...1 "jammer" (basically like a running back in a run-only offense), one "pivot" (the relay anchor), and three blockers.

The jammers have stars upon thars -- that is, they have little shower cap looking things on their heads with big stars on them -- so the blockers know who to block. All the blockers start together in a "pack." The jammers start about ten feet behind. Whichever jammer bullies her way through the pack and passes all players first is the "lead jammer."

The whole time, everybody is skating forward. The jammers skate around the rink and catch up to the pack again (since they're a pack, they move more slowly) and they score 1 point for each person they legally pass after they make it through the pack the second time. (Going outside the lines isn't legal. Shoving someone down and stepping over her isn't legal. A host of other things, including use of elbows and kicking legs out from under bodies, are not legal.)

Each Jammer has her own ref who skates around and around in the innermost circle, counting the points the jammer racks up. Every jam session is 2 minutes or until the lead jammer calls it off by putting her hands on her waist. (Strategy tip: If you make three points and someone else is about to make five, you call it off first.) Then you line up and do it all again. "Bouts" consist of two thirty-minute halves. There are 30 seconds between each jam (mandatory) while the players line up. There are also time-outs and "official reviews" and lots of other nonsense.

One minute minors are served in the penalty box for each illegal block. Yes, jammers can get put in the box, too. When jammers are put in the box, it's a power jam, since the other team doesn't have any way to score any points. But both jammers can't be in the box at the same time (or else the blockers are out blocking nobody) so if both jammers get minors, the penalty is over for the jammer who is already in the box. Even if you only have two blockers skating in the rink, every time the jammer passes you, they get five points.

After, I had a pulled pork sandwich with cherry cole slaw on it and a fresh strawberry shake. Yum. And then we had a discussion about possessives and "'s," and the significance of "ye olde" and j and i and other linguistic historical factoids. Basically, it was a crazy evening! But at the end, when I actually had figured it out, and there was a major upset about to happen, it was really actually fun to watch. Not sure I'd do it again, but it was definitely a Cultural Experience.