Fake Ice!

My life as I know it changed forever in a ground-breaking way over this past Thanksgiving weekend. During the last eight years I’ve spent in Texas, I’ve played this little game with myself to constantly be on the lookout for the most Texan or country thing I have ever seen. I’ve been unable to top two things since 2004: 1) the phrase, “I’ll tell yew whut…” and 2) chicken fried steak. These and many more of my outsider, “yankee” preconceptions were shattered in four small days.

It all started with the simple fact that our weekend of tryptophan induced Thanks was to be held in Mertens, Texas. You don’t know where that is? Don’t worry, neither does the rest of Texas. Mertens is a small dwelling (not really sure it’s actually large enough to be called a town) in central Texas that exists because farmers still exist. I can’t be quoted on this, but I would bet my right arm that there are more cattle in Mertens than people, hell, probably more tractors too. We were going there because that’s where Tim’s mother and her husband (yes, a farmer) live.

I digress – there is far too much to this weekend to capture succinctly if I get off track – so on Wednesday evening Tim and I pick up his girls and continue our drive out to Gammy and Gampie’s farm. The following day is spent jumping over, through, and on haystacks to keep ourselves entertained, piling in the four-wheelers and racing the pack of dogs for two miles to the creek bed to go exploring, and of course stuffing ourselves silly and watching football.

On Black Friday, our solution to avoiding the shopping crowds and spending craze was to go out to a town just north and visit the ice skating rink Tim’s mom had seen advertised in the paper. Should be fun! Hell, it was already in the high 30s and felt like the north pole, we might as well go ice skating. It was a 40 minute drive to the town, and of course one of the girls wanted to go and the other one didn’t. We overruled Negative Nancy, however, and were soon piled in the car to go. It was a cheerful drive – everybody cheered up and was happy to get out of the house and go skate. We had a little trouble finding the place, but soon turned a corner and saw a picket fence surrounding blinding white, and a lone skater tottering around out there. The girls instantly started chattering and wanted to get going. Tim and I exchanged knowing glances that were later explained to mean, respectively: “this shit is tiny - thank God, now I don’t have get out there and risk busting my ass,” and “an outdoor rink? In Texas? I know its cold but still just 40 degrees… how the hell do they keep that thing frozen?? Is it cooled from underground? A town like this can’t afford that kind of technology… what the hell.”

Tim had to chat with Negative Nancy back at the car, so I suggested to her sister that we go ask how much it costs and start trying on skates until they were ready to join. We get all our info and walk to the fence to watch the skaters… and it hits us at the same time: its fake fucking ice. I’m immediately horrified and can only think of the 10 year old beside me and how crushed she is going to be and what do I say to her? But I didn’t get anything out because as soon as I look down, her face is already turned up towards mine and she hisses out, “oh my god, it’s not even real ice!!” I could do nothing but try with all my energy to hold in a laugh. That didn’t work. We broke out in a dead sprint to Tim at the same exact time, me reaching him first only because of my longer legs. It took a solid minute for the look of comprehension to dawn on his face, even with both of us repeating our shocking finding in pause-less unison for 60 seconds. The next five minutes were spent catching our breath and quieting our laughter.

Don’t think that just because the ice was fake that the girls didn’t want to skate. Oh no. We paid their six dollars each and watched them march around that giant cutting board for nearly thirty minutes. The rink attendants watched people struggle and kept saying, “just rub your skates back and forth real quick, the warmer the blades are the faster you’ll glide!” No fucking shit – hot metal cuts through two inch thick plastic faster than cold metal? And notice they didn’t say “skate.” That entire establishment was a giant bumblefuck. When the younger one had to go to the bathroom, they told her that if she took off her skates she was done for the day, but then said she couldn’t leave the grounds to go to the bathroom, which was an outhouse in a dark alley across the street. I have a picture of Tim carrying his 8-year old in full onesie ski suit and ice skates across the street so he could set her in the porta-potty to pee. The trip was topped off when “Santa” came rolling down main street. I use quotation marks here because he looked more like a child molester in his faded red suit and jankety go-cart with radio-flyer duct taped to the back with unkempt children strewn about it, sort of waving and haphazardly tossing out candy. After all the shenanigans, we decided to call it a day, but not before gathering in front of the fake ice rink and posing for a picture, replacing the traditional “cheese!” with a hearty, “fake ice!” You can even see families marching in ice skates across the background. I have that photo framed.