One foot from 5 stars. \r
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My 8 year old daughter had been given a new set of roller skates for christmas. She had never skated before and was self conscious to try it in public. So, for the past couple months she had been taking those baby steps to skating up on down our hardwood hallway. Finally this last Saturday, she agreed to take her efforts public and we attended Edru Skate A Rama. Let me tell you, it was like walking through the pearly gates of heaven to that little girl the moment they buzzed us through the entry door and into paradise. She had recently become quite fond of my cassette tape collection and was excited to see that the rink's DJ must have had the same one. I picked out a nice spot next to the rink floor, near an entry point. I did have some initial fears when I saw this neanderthal skating around with a hat on, but, Edru security quickly took care of that situation. \r
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Over the next couple of hours, I saw my daughter grow as a skater. Initially, she just wanted to hug the rails, but, over time she started to venture out into the open floor. Roller Roo, the rinks mascot helped her efforts as she wanted to skate along with him. Fellow skaters helped the experience. She took a couple of tumbles that resulted in someone swooping in to make sure she was ok. She couldn't break the smile on her face after awhile. She was confidently skating around. \r
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It finally became time to take off and I had let her know this was her last song, which happened to be lady humps by the black eyed peas. as the song ended, she came gliding over to where I was sat. That smile still beaming across her face as I saw her coming off the floor. With about a foot left, the smiling image of my daughter was suddenly absent. In a flash, I couldn't find her. I finally realized she was about 50 feet down the rink, laying on the ground and in tears. It was so fast we both didn't know what had happened. We later found one of her wheels in the arcade and still haven't found some of her teeth.\r
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As I attended to my daughter, I had a weird encounter with another skater, slowly gliding by...he popped his collar...crossed his arms and stared us down until he hopped off at the snack area and began eating his nachos while still locking eyes with me. Later, witnesses confirmed he mumbled something along the lines of ""watch this"", then hit the floor, cranking it up to full speed before obliterating my daughter. By the time I found this out, I couldn't find that person in the building and after looking outside, saw a vehicle speeding out of the parking lot. \r
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For those wondering, my daughter was released from the hospital after only a few days. She has decided to hang the skates up for now and is still working through her fear of men in polo shirts. Oddly I received a text from an anonymous number that said ""sry bout wat hapend."" Those words meant more then that person probably knows.
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