seven.

SO! My plan worked a little. I have decided to make a little post about The Great Southern Slam.

The weekend started on a low. My womans nana passed away two days before we were due to leave, which put a big strain on the poor kid (I can still say that, she wasn't 21 yet). At first she was planning on pulling out of the tournament, to stay with her Mum, but, I think dear Mummsy told her that was ridiculous, there was no point moping around when there is skating to be done.

Thursday night I headed to Ballarat with plans to leave around 7am on Friday morning. We chilled out for a while, bummed around, packed her things, did some grocery shopping. At around 3 to 4am we realised that the chances of us getting any sleep were minimal, so, why not leave now!? After a shower for me and a bad-packing-mission for her, we left at around 4.45am.

The drive went quick, it was cold, wet and dark, but the roads were near deserted and the time just flew by. I got to know my woman a little better too, as she opened up somewhat, which she rarely feels comfortable doing. As my stereo is dead, we used my phone to produce tunes, though deciding what to listen to is a pain. By only Ararat we decided stocking up on caffiene was a good idea, but the servos lack of decent food was a little frustrating, thus the next Maccas we saw, hash browns ahoy!

I drove for a good nearly four hours, the time just flew by...helped along by bored creativity...

Eventually I had my woman take over...I think at maybe Nhill? Nhill is where I got some petrol and found a rainbow smelly-tree for the car...which I only bought for the rainbow. Turns out it smelled AMAZING, and bought 2 more on the way home... Anyway, while she drove, I accidentally fell asleep, even though she is an L-plater, but meh, she's a good driver. I took over again at Talem Bend, so I could be the one driving when we got into Adelaide. The hotel was super easy to find, and we checked in at around 1.30pm. I left her to have a nap while I went and visited my folks and my Grandma. I was overly proud of not having to check the map to find her house.

After visiting, I went to get ready to test the tracks at the pavillion. I tried to wake my woman, but she was dead asleep, drooling on my pillow, so I left her to it. Because I was alone, I sat in my car outside the showgrounds for a good 20 minutes, too scared to go in. Eventually I grew some nads and went in, and was astounded by the setup. Three tracks in one building, another out back. So many rollergirls in the one place. Heaven. I found a few buddies and went for a roll, keeping an eye out for any particularly amusing names (Tora Hymenov anyone!?). I threw my womans name into the raffle in a 'yeah, not likely' moment, but, as the raffle was drawn, "next winner, Helter Belter"....Fuck. Up I get, in my 'Scarlett Savage' branded shorts to get her Sin City Skates tshirt. You cheater, Scarlett, you cheater. After a few hours, registration was closing, and no other GRDL skaters had arrived other than Mickey, so it was up to us to register (even though a handful of other GRDLers were lazily chilling out at their rooms), which pissed me off immensly, then to have to stick around and wait for them to have the team meeting, when I was planning on being home to look after my girl...I was less than impressed. By the time I got home I was ready to punch people, rumors had ALREADY been spread that my girl wasn't skating anymore, WTF? Some people are just so intent on being in control that they take peoples words and turn them into something for them to use to boost their authority. Sociopaths. I managed to sort out with Saff who was having a fit of stress that no, my girl was still intending to skate, she was just chilling out tonight.

Saturday morning, we donned our Maulrats uniforms and head to the pavilion. We were running just on time, not quite early enough to find any breakfast, but early enough to be able to have a wander around, check out the teams. My woman was told officially that she was a sub for the first game, along with Nitro who had a sore knee. I really don't remember much about the bout against Perth, except that I landed an amazing hit on Hot Wheels, who is a body builder, that made her airborne. That and I got no penalties, not even a minor, for the entire bout. After said bout, which we won, I went for a wander, honestly, I can't remember where to, I watched a few bouts here and there, chatted to a few folk, ate some delicious chips etc.
From the get-go I had worried that I would be a sub at some point, but nobody had said anything to me at all. Just before I was about to put my skates on for the second bout against pot luck, I went to pee and ran into Saff. "I'm sorry Scar, I forgot to message you about subbing out of this bout". Balls. I would have been okay, but I was just about to put my skates on, and then I was asked to bench manage (I couldn't say no of course). When Spesh saw I wasn't skating she lost it, she turned into 'Mama Spesh' and I had to beg her not to go question the captains as to why. I don't know how I did with the whole bench thing, I just kept calm the whole way, and tried to put my woman on whenever they needed a spot, so she actually got some track time. Maulrats won that bout too, putting us against the Adelaidies that night.
I didn't realise how bad at the time, but my girl was hit in the face, causing her to fall and bend her fingers back. She barely complained as they swelled and turned many-a-shade of purple.

Against the Adelaidies I was back on track, while Bez and my lady were kept off, again. They went to play in some challenge bouts, so they actually got to skate a bit for the weekend, while we played. The bout started behind schedule due to a lost ref, which just let our nerves have time to get worked up. It was beautiful, our VRDL favourites had their Maulrats shirts on, DNN was filming, we had a good couple of cheersquads scattered throughout the crowd and we were pumped to go. Again, I remember little from the bout, BUT, I did make Barrelhouse Bessy fall. I was sent to the bin twice (one for out of play, one for forearms...which was bull, she hit ME in the face). The reffing was truly horrendous, Ruby got ejected, some of Aces points were lost in the abyss and we lost by 50 points. 50 amazing points. PROUD! It was an intense bout, and I was wrecked afterwards, but we gave Adelaide a decent fight and showed what we were made of. Having said this, after watching the DNN footage, I nearly cried. I look like the local retarded kid has been allowed to strap on some skates and bout. Half motivating to be better, half crushing to see how shit I am.
That night, I watched my girl pivot like a maniac in tiny but mighty, sulked cos I missed the girls bout in drag and got lost in the city. While lost, I nearly hit a few people running along the road, around the corner I saw why... There was a car alarm going off and a guy lying on the ground not moving...with more people running away. I'm a little curious as to what happened next, but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Instead, we found takeaway food in Dominoes pizza, where we ran into a bunch of Townsville girls. We sure slept well that night.
Sunday morning I had my bout with the Mean Reds. Unfortunately, due to getting lost, I arrived right on time, rather than early like a good captain should. I did't have time to warm up or stretch...but we all looked awesome in our uniforms. We won, in the name of Bloodnut, I jammed and did pretty darn good, Dolly Tartan was a machine and we all worked beautifully together.

Next up was the Vagine Regime. We won again, and had a bunch of fun again. We skated through a banner of a vagina, I wore very, very small things as shorts. (They were actually panties). My derby crush on Bella grew by a thousand when we worked together magically at 3 and 4. I nearly peed when I saw Keasey's face when Cannon got her G out. I fell in love with Pixie Pincher. I remember her from when they were in Melbourne last year, and she was just as lovely back then as she is now, just a beautiful person. Oh, DNN filmed that bout too.

After the VR bout, I sat down to watch Pirate City V Adelaide with some of those delicious hot chips. Towards the end of the bout I had Nerd come up to me saying that my woman was going to the hospital and to look after her skate gear. (!?!?!?!?) I went to go for a wander, and had a few more people come up to me. I then saw her running towards me in a panic, she grabbed her wallet and ran off. Didn't even tell me what was going on. Nobody would give me a straight answer, and she just ran off when I tried to call after her. I was angry by that point, or more, worried, with said stress coming out as anger. Lux came up to me and the stress from the current events and my frustration with her arrogance on Friday night mixed to produce my 'rage-roar'. I exploded with a big 'fuck off' that made passers by stare curiously. I then stormed off and cuddled up into Betsies leg and cried. I was so hurt that she wouldn't tell me what was going on, and wouldn't even answer my texts.

Watching the hilarity of the Babydolls v Battleaxes cheered me up a little, golly the Axes look brilliant.

I stuck around to catch the first half of the Grand Final, which was just amazing to watch, but finally she replied to me so I headed off to the hospital.

Adelaide roads are hell, every other street is a 'no right hand turn', and the traffic lights are synced in reverse, so you get stuck at every intersection. The hospital emercency carpark was closed on Sundays (genius) and all local parking was full or required coins. I cracked the shits and wrote a note on my dash with my phone number and didn't pay, as I had spent my last coins on water just hours before.

The waiting room was shit, there was this redneck fuckwit sitting behind me after she'd gone in to the doctor. I'd had my arm around her, and was wearing my 'queer roller derby' hoodie, so this redneck fuckwit went on a ten minute rant about how lesbians are wrong and blah blah blah. It was so in depth (yet clearly not very intelligent) that by the end (as it was for my benefit) I was almost ready to go up to the cops who'd just walked in to ask if they'd have my back if I was to beat this guy with a chair. He would be no great loss to society, he was boasting about his last times of being in hospital, handcuffed to 'pigs and screws' and whatnot. Oh, and his many OD's. What a productive member of society. When I saw the flash of my girls red hair, I launched at her and dragged her away, didn't even stop to ask what had happened/was she okay. As I walked out the door, I gave him the little 'lick between the 'V'd fingers' as I grabbed her arse. If only I coulda thought to mention that he's jealous that we could pleasure his girlfriend far better than he ever could.

Anyway, turns out two of her fingers have fractures that might require surgery. Happy 21st Birthday!

Not to let some fractures get in the way of a good afterparty, we showered and headed off to HQ. As we walked in, my wife and her woman were leaving with Mickey and Flemme. It was barely 10pm and they were leaving, cos 'it was shit in there'. Fuck that. Yes, the music was bad and the metros in there were wanks, but it's about being in the company of the derby girls!

We got there, had a few drinks, then headed in to the stage for the pants off dance off. It was a little disorganised, and we wanted to be on the stage, but some bad cover-singer was up there instead. I decided I enjoyed having my dress hitched up to show off the panties I'd skated in for the VR (over 2 pairs of stockings mind you) so stayed that way for the rest of the eve. A few more drinks later, and I'd danced with so many people, grinded so many legs, been eyeballed by a few and gawked at for my pantslessness by more. I hipchecked Spot'er, humped Scumshine and rubbed my butt on most people there. I was also told by some randoms that my butt was the best in the venue. High five!
Soon it was midnight and my woman had officially turned 21. We sang so loud that the whole courtyard joined in. I danced some more. We had a dude try and pick us up cos we were lesbians. I had no less than 3 people come up to me, recognising me as a Maulrat and congratulating me. I was in awe of being recognised. More in awe of the people doing the recognising. I hugged Skate the Muss (new hero) and danced some more. Eventually, my girl had got to the destructive stage of her drinking, so I convinced her to come home, before she did anything silly, not before I was recognised again while she was hipchecking and groping KVK.

There was so much derby love and rampaging hormones in that room when we left that it was surprising it hadn't yet turned into an orgy...though it certainly was very close.

Monday was spent in bed, sleeping off the booze, then giving her present. Then we decided not to waste the day completely and headed out for food. After a long wander, we found a mexican place called 'burp' that was nice, except for my out of date drink.

Tuesday we headed home, but had to stop for a nap before we even hit Talem. I was getting the sleepies real bad! The drive home is always so much worse than the drive there, but, we made it home alive with some very interesting memories.

Over the weekend, I met some truly amazing people that I can't wait to skate and party with in the future. I grew a few derby crushes, I enhanced another. I fell in love with the Sydney team. I am so proud of my mean reds. I came home with a bundle of tshirts, not enough photos, a bandaid tape rash on my elbow, epic memories and big(ger) black rings under my eyes. I have seen how I need to improve my skills and I can't wait for tomorrow to get the improvements into motion.

I thank every single person who put the slam together and made it memorable for me personally, and I cannot wait until next year, though hopefully the circumstances will be slightly happier.

Until my next burst of motivation,

ScarXo