They had been lying around the house for quite some time. I bought them on sale at the end of the season. The following year, I was so consumed with school, music, and other extracurriculars that I didn't sign up for summer league.
I came across the roller-hockey skates while spring cleaning. They were sitting in the corner. I decided they needed a new home. I had been hanging on to them for no apparent reason. I had tried listing them for sale before, but there seemed to be little interest. The box they came in was a little banged up. The skates themselves had a little dust on their wheels, just from when I tried them on at the store. I took a few photos, wrote up a brief description, and posted an ad on Facebook Marketplace. Sure enough, after a few days, I got a reply. Someone wanted to buy the skates. We decided to meet at a public location.
The lady I had been messaging brought her son along with her. He must have been about 10 years old; the skates were for him after all. | suggested he try them on to make sure they fit. We sat on the curb outside the meeting place, I loosened the laces on one of the skates, and told him to kick his heel down hard while I held his foot. Being new, the skates were still stiff; they hadn't been broken in yet. He got his foot into the skate with no trouble. I tightened the laces and wrapped the ends around his ankle. Before I could finish with the other skate, he stood up and took off across the parking lot. He finally came to rest on a grassy area not too far away. He laughed and laughed, then came rolling back.
During his escapade, his mom and I got to chatting, albeit briefly. She noticed that this particular style of skate didn't have a brake or stop on them - as what you might see on the more common rollerblade. She asked how he was supposed to stop while playing roller hockey (assuming there was no grassy median nearby), I explained what I remembered about the footwork associated with stopping one's self while on roller hockey skates. I reassured her that he'd get the hang of it. His coaches would know best. He got up, and rolled back towards us.
The boy sat back down on the curb and I began to loosen the laces. His mom asked him how the skates felt, wanting to make sure they were a good fit. He smiled, and said they fit well. I mentioned that, as a kid, to help break in new skates, I would put them under my mattress at night time. I would go to sleep and then wake up in the morning. I would check on them as soon as woke up just to see how they did over night. I suggested that putting these (brand new) skates under the mattress would be something they could try.
On the walk home, I got to thinking about it some more. My mattress trick. I recall doing this with other things too. Anytime I would try a new sport, and the equipment was stiff or hurt the first time I wore it, I would put it under my mattress. When I was in ballet, I got toe shoes. Under the mattress they went. My baseball glove. I put it under the mattress. Hockey skates. Under the mattress. I came to realize at a very early age that, every time something was hard, if I put the piece of equipment under the mattress, over time, things got easier. The leather would become more supple, the fibreglass would mold itself a little better to my foot, I could point my toes a little better.
My love of statistics and data science got the better of me at that very moment. I began to wonder if there could be a relationship between a mattress and accelerating (or improving) at a particular sport. I started thinking about the role a mattress might play. Perhaps the mattress itself was lucky and caused my (kind of) success at sports (I never really was THAT good at any one particular sport). Maybe by tucking my most prized possessions under the mattress, the luck was somehow transferred to the piece of footwear, or the glove, and that luck was somehow transferred to me.
Did I make the sale? Well, a transaction definitely occurred that day. A boy got a pair of skates and I had an extra $20 bill in my wallet.
I'm saving up for a new mattress.
