I sprained my ankle skateboarding in a 12 foot bowl. I fell off and my leg folded up underneath me and went numb. I lay there and whimpered a minute, then Dirk helped me stand up. I asked the Lord to please let me be alright, though I knew I didn't deserve it. It is reasonable that I should suffer for trying to learn vert at age thirty. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" (Duet 6:16). After resting a minute and talking to Dirk about gravitational time dilation and the creation of the universe, I drove home with my uninjured left foot. My right ankle meanwhile swelled up and turned purple and I was on crutches for two days. Then I had to go back to work. I limped for a month. Two months later I can almost run normally again but I still can't ollie. God spared me any serious consequences but he did leave me with enough to remind me to take some previously ignored factors into consideration, such as age or lack of AFLAC insurance, when assessing the risk involved in my self-amusement. I remember hobbling away from campus after class one night and hearing suddenly the noisy clacking of skate wheels rushing over the sidewalk, echoing ominously between the buildings on the empty campus. It's one of those ugly noises, like underground hardcore, or sportbikes, that awakens a craving inside of me. I looked back just in time to see him catch big air over a sidewalk ramp. For just a moment he hung in the air like spiderman in silence, then the wheels were clacking and rushing over the sidewalk again. I resumed limping to my van, now with some vicarious exuberance but also with some envy, wishing I hadn't gotten hurt.