The Rollerblade Planet - Spaceship #335 - A Bedtime Visualization

0:04 Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world. I'm Martin and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories, of the podcast that takes listener ideas and turns them into bedtime stories. Listener ideas like this one.

0:21 Hi, my name is Owen from San Antonio, Texas, and I would like to ask for a planet that everybody rollerbladeses on. Thank you. I love your podcast.

0:39 Well, Owen, that is a wonderful idea, and I think that's exactly what we're going to do today, and we'll get onto it after a possible word from a possible sponsor. Now it's time to close your eyes, get as comfy as you can in that bed or wherever it is you're hanging out right now, and imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does. You wake up on spaceship.

1:10 Good morning, Spaceship says, good morning, you say, as you stretch your arms and swing your legs over the side of the bed. I believe I have discovered an interesting planet. H what's so interesting about it? You ask, Well, primarily, it is interesting because of the way the people of the planet travel from place to place. Instead of using a car or other reasonable vehicle. These people roller blade everywhere the roller blade. I guess that seems cool. Yes, their entire society has been developed for the use of roller blades. They roller blade down the street, into their houses, and even on cross country road trips. How do they go cross country on roller blades, you ask? Many of them use electric assist blades, motorized roller blades capable of

2:29 travel at over one hundred kilometers or sixty miles per hour. What that's insane. If they fell, they'd be like hurt really badly. Yes, that is correct. Road rash is also a major part of their society. Okay, well, I guess we should go check it out. I have taken the liberty of setting a course. You leave your bedroom on the spaceship and head out to the main area. You walk over to the viewscreen where you see spaceship traveling at super hyper drive. You quickly grab some breakfast from your little breakfast replicator, beat it up, and before you know it, spaceship has arrived at an earth like planet.

3:34 You sit down in the control chair and grab a hold of the steering wheel. You press forward on the throttle and blast down into the atmosphere. You drop below the clouds to reveal well a planet with a whole bunch of cities and roads and infrastructure. It honestly looks like Earth at first, until you get a little bit lower, when you can make out how all of the people are moving around, and sure enough, they're going from place to place on roller blades. The inner states are full of people and sometimes their children, blasting down the highway on what look to be well rocket powered roller blades.

4:34 It looks wildly dangerous they're wearing helmets, but still when you get closer to the cities, things seem a little more relaxed. There's still main roads full of roller bladers traveling at pretty high speeds, but there's also ramps everywhere. The entire place looks like a gigantic skate park. People moving from building to building on their roller blades, some going at a nice, you know, slow and relaxed pace, others traveling down skateboard like ramps and blasting over jumps performing cool tricks, and others on their rocket powered blades, blasting from place to place in the city at incredible speed.

5:33 You find a little area of grass in the middle of one of the main cities, surrounded by all sorts of skateboard or well roller blade ramps. In this case, you carefully land the ship on the open patch of grass. The back door opens up and you step outside. This place is amazing, you say, as you walk across the grass to where some of the rollerbladers are roller blading.

6:11 Hey, what are you doing?

6:16 One of them says and points in your direction. Others seem to notice the pointing, and they also turned towards you. Everyone looks confused.

6:32 Why why do you have no wheels?

6:41 The boy says. You look down at your feet and then back at the kid.

6:50 Oh, what do you mean?

6:53 You move but you.

6:58 Have no wheels? How you do this?

7:07 You mean walking? You just put one foot in front of the other until you get where you're going. Everyone around you gasps and shock. This is very irregular. You must not let the police see you do this. Do you not have your roller blades? Oh? Yeah, my roller blades. I just left them in the spaceship. Just just one second, you walk back into the ship. Spaceship, I think I'm gonna need some roller blades. Pretty quickly I realized the same thing. Here, A large robotic arm shoots out of one of the walls. Carrying two very high tech looking roller blades. I have specially designed these for this planet.

8:16 They are powered by a nuclear diamond battery and capable of reaching speeds up to one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. Oh you say, as you grab the roller blades, open up the little snaps on the side and slip your feed into them. How do I operate them? Well, you can operate them manually by using a sort of skating motion, or if you wish to engage the electric drive, all you have to do is think about engaging the electric drive, much like flying in your spacesuit. Ow cool.

9:08 You snap them on and tighten them up. Would you like a refresher on rollerblading techniques? Spaceship asks, Uh, yeah, probably, you already know a little bit about roller blading, but well, a refresher could never hurt. A little helmet drops from the ceiling, You place it on your head, close your eyes, and almost instantly, memories start to shoot into your brain.

9:44 Memories of roller blading down a nice little path, memories of roller blading inside a crazy skate park, going up and down a halfpipe, performing spins and flips, and all sorts of different maneuvers. When the memories stop, you take off the helmet and well, you feel like you could do just about anything on roller blades. I have also equipped your watches safety mode.

10:22 If you were to.

10:23 Fall suddenly in any situation, an anti gravity mode will be initiated, stopping you from slamming into the ground or any other object. Uh cool, you say, You head out of the ship on your roller blades. You rolled down the ramp and straight onto the grass. It isn't easy to roller blade on grass, but you initiate the electric engines and make your way over to one of the paths.

10:58 Luckily for you, there's paths just about everywhere here. The same kid who had pointed at you before for not wearing roller blades rolls over towards you. Well, I see you found yourself your roller blades. You have to be careful around here. If people see you without them, they'll ask questions. A sorry, truth is, I'm not actually from this planet. I'm from a planet where people walk places sometimes other times they drive or you know, all sorts of other types of transportation. But you know what I mean, Yeah, I guess I do. Well, then, welcome to a planet where everybody roller blades. Legend has it. We used to have other types of well transportation around here, but slowly the government switched to only roller blades. Why did they

12:09 do that, you ask? Well, the official reason is because it's awesome and also for environmental reasons, but many of us highly suspect that our largest roller blade manufacturer might have well influenced the government with a little bit of money. Really, you mean somebody bribed the government into making roller blading the only form of transportation on this planet. Ah, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how it happened. But well, because it's awesome, nobody really complained. Here. Follow me, I'll show you around. Well. Name's Blade by the way, the kid says, reaching his hand out for a handshake. You shake his hand.

13:11 He looks to be about your age, wearing a high tech looking helmet and some high tech looking roller blades. He turns away from you and blasts down a ramp and off a jump, where he performs a perfect backflip before landing on the other side. You shrug your shoulders and decide to follow. Using your mind, you initiate the electric mode in the roller blades and begin to roll forward.

13:46 It feels a little weird at first for your feet to be kind of pulling you, but you get used to it quickly. As you fly down the ramp and up the gigantic jump on the other side, instinctively you perform a perfect backflip before landing on the other side. As well. You follow the kid down the ramp through a little town like area and out into the city.

14:18 As you can see, when we get everywhere on these things, blade says as he jumps over another gigantic gap and lands on the other side with ease. You increase your speed and blast over easily as well. Now the whole place has been set up for roller blades. You can skate right into any store. There's ramps pretty much everywhere you need to go. And well, of course there's a small division between travel blading and roller blading itself. If you want to go on the main roads, you have to have blades capable of reaching highway speeds at minimum eighty kilometers an hour. Oh, can your roller blades do that?

15:19 Of course they can. Want to see what about you? Are those things capable? I think? So a blade comes to a stop beside the road and rolls over onto the thing all right, let's merge with traffic. Three two, one go. He blasts onto the road and merges with other roller bladers, some moving at incredible speed with what look to be electric roller blades, and others, as you had seen before, wearing what looked like rocket powered roller blades.

16:01 You quickly increase the speed of your blades to blast through the city quickly enough, and before long you're going in excess of one hundred kilometers an hour about sixty miles. You blast around a long, gradual bend and not a gigantic ramp, onto a huge overpass. The overpass moves through the city above most of it. You fly past huge skyscrapers and all kinds of different on ramps and off ramps to different parts of the city. You watch as other roller bladers merge onto the highway, some of them pushing smaller children in what look like strollers. You can't imagine it's the safest way to get kids around, but it does look pretty cool. Hey, uh, follow me. There's actually a really cool competition going on today. We can

17:09 go check it out. You blast to the right down and off ramp and straight on to another highway, one that leads out of the city. The skyscrapers disappear as you fly by on the road, and slowly you start to see well normal sized houses and must be the suburbs or something like that. Soon the houses disappear and are replaced by fields, fields being farmed by farmers who, instead of driving tractors, seem to be wearing gigantic, oversized roller blades that somehow push across fields and hull plows and things behind them. It's wildly odd and seems incredibly inefficient, but huh, it is what it is. Soon you see a large mountain in the distance. Blade gestures for you to follow them, so you do. You head off the

18:22 off ramp up a little mountain road that starts winding up the huge mountain, around and around and around until you arrive at the top, where a large crowd of people are gathered and some guy with a microphone is announcing things. Well, come, ladies and gentlemen, two a monthly downhill roller blating competition. As you know, contestants will be competing for this giant pile of gold. He points over to a pile of gold, gold and jewels shining in the sunshine like some sort of pirate treasure. You all know the rules, but of course we've made it more interesting than ever. We've added more jumps, more gaps, and more deadly traps than ever, and as always, were sponsored by roller Wheels. The only roller blades officially approved by

19:46 the government. Use roller wheels or be arrested. That seems strange to you. Ah, are you only allowed to use one type of roller blade here? You ask? Ah? Oh, you mean roller wheels. Yeah, that's the giant roller blade company I was talking to you about. Uh. There used to be competitors, but nowadays roller wheels are the only ones you're allowed to buy. That is what you're wearing. Right.

20:24 You look down at your roller blades and back up at blade. I don't think mine have a brand name. Exactly overhearing the competition, a police officer on his own roller blades glides in. Excuse me, sir, did you just say that your roller blades are not, in fact roller Wheel brand roller blades. I believe you'll have to come with me, sir. You quickly back away from the officer. Hey, back off. Just because I'm not wearing roller Wheel brand roller blades doesn't mean that I couldn't well roller blade better than any of you. The whole crowd gasps, uh, sir, it is highly illegal to be using anything but roller Wheel brand roller blades. I'm gonna have to take you in for some questioning and possible retraining. I'm not going

21:31 anywhere with you, you say an Almost immediately, spaceship appears overhead. Large freeze rays shoot out of it and point down at the crowd. Everybody gasps again, looking up at the thing. Then the announcer speaks, Oh, ladies and gentlemen, let's calm down a bit here. Ah, Perhaps we don't have to be too hasty. It's clear from the giant menacing spaceship flying overhead that this particular person isn't from around here and may just not have been aware of the superior quality of roller wheels the official sponsor of this competition, Now, why don't we show him how good they are instead of arresting him. Let's turn this little thing into a bit of a competition. If the young person here will accept,

22:46 you simply shrug your shoulders in response, very good, Then come on up here and join the competition, young one. If you win, we will allow you to wear your off brand roller blades anywhere on the planet any time you wish. However, if you lose, you must promise to only wear roller wheels. And if you're accidentally unlive from this absolutely dangerous and crazy competition, well it shouldn't.

23:29 Be a problem.

23:32 That worries you for a second until you remember the whole well anti gravity device that's in your watch. You probably can't get hurt in any way on this particular competition. So you skate over to the starting line and look left and right at your competitors, all of them wearing roller wheels brand roller skates, helmets and full leather outfits, looking completely ready for a crazy down hill race. You look down the hill itself too, a gigantic skateboard ramp that flies off the side of the cliff and heads directly towards an enormous jump before wrapping around and spirals heading down the mountain. You see a water pit that looks like it's filled with alligators or something. You see a section with very strange contraptions on the left and right,

24:45 and you even see a full loop to loop contestants a you ready, ah, you set go, The gates open, and you and the others head down the first gigantic hill. You increase your speed slightly to keep up with the other bladers. As you hit the first gigantic jump, you fly across an enormous gap, and just for fun, you perform a perfect backflip. As you slowly spin upside down, you look below to the pit of water that clearly as alligators swimming in it. You continue the flip and land easily on the other side. Well, one of the main contestants slips on the landing and blasts over towards the edge. It looks rather painful. You make your way into a series of corkscrew turns, around and around and around as you head down the mountain and then through

26:00 through that strange area with the weird contraptions on the side. The weird contraptions suddenly activate, sending lasers across the path, some of them high, some of them low. Clearly it's time to start dodging. You duck under the first jump, over the second, turn, sort of sideways over the third, and for the last one. There's a series of lasers in a line, so many that you can't jump upward without well reaching the exact position you'd need to fit between two of them. You quickly turn sideways, fly through the air, straighten your body and make it straight through the lasers. You watch as two of your competitors hit them and are immediately electrified. It doesn't look deadly, but it doesn't look painless either. You spin your body, land

27:07 on the ground, and head straight towards the loop to loop. There's only two other competitors still with you. You look behind you to see both of them, and mentally you speed up your roller blades faster and faster, heading straight into the loop to loop, You try to keep dead center as you go up in the air, around the loop and down the other side. You made it, and then you see five more of the things. Oh, this is gonna make me dizzy. You continue straight down the ramp, straight in the center as you go around the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and you enter in into another large ramp area with a gigantic jump.

28:04 On the other side, another huge gap, this time filled with jagged rocks, is approaching. You launch off the thing straight up into the air, and again you perform a long and slow front flip. The crowd cheers as you blast through the air and gracefully land on the other side. You zoom down the ramp and skid to a halt right across the finish line, ahead by enough to watch the others fly off the last ramp. One of them lands in trees off to the side, luckily looking well, minorly injured but generally okay, while the other lands perfectly and slides in beside you. The crowd goes crazy. The announcer from above the mountain slides into view on his very own rollerblades. He looks unhappy. He picks up the microphone.

29:18 Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that our alien visitor has won the competition. Everyone cheers again. So has promised we will give them an exemption to the roller wheel's monopoly. The crowd cheers again, but the announcer doesn't look particularly happy. Blade slides up beside you. Wow, that was amazing, and even more amazing that you showed those ros the wheels people.

30:01 What's what? Oh cool? I want to come hang out for a bit of my place, maybe another time, you say, I think I should probably get out of here. Spaceship hovers down above you and opens the back hatch. A little rope drops down. You grab a hold of it and it lifts you up into the air, straight onto the ramp. You roll into the ship, turn around and wave goodbye as the back hatch closes. Well did you have fun, Spaceship asks, Yeah, but I don't know if I made for a planet where everybody rolled their blades all the time. That whole roller wheels thing is a bit weird, agreed, Spaceship says, you, uebuckle the roller blades, place them beside the couch, and lay down on it.

31:11 You close your eyes, and with each breath your body begins to sink down into the couch. You let your arms relax, you let go of the tension, and your legs, your shoulders, your neck, and even your face. And with each breath you sink down a little more. And the more you breathe, the better you feel, and the better you feel, the deeper you sink, until your mind wanders off to thoughts of new dreams and new adventures.

32:00 Mist to come good night everyone.

33:47 And.

33:53 Never union.

35:02 Mc n new yor.

40:53 More than union of things mo Nan Union h