While waiting at a red light this morning, I saw a white dude with dreads, lip ring, nose ring, and those lobe-stretching earrings riding a skateboard down a steep hill towards the intersection. He wore a leather jacket, military-style cargo pants, boots, and bug-eyed shades. He was Suburban Rob Zombie.

When Suburban Rob Zombie (SRZ, for short) neared the bottom of the hill, he hit a bump. The skateboard stopped but SRZ propelled forward and hit the pavement like he was in a belly-flop contest at a pool party. Luckily, SRZ missed landing directly in the intersection, thus avoiding further injury by being run over by passing cars. He picked himself up, looked to see if anyone saw the fall aside from the guy staring at him like the OMG cat (me) and then limped back uphill to get the skateboard.

He started to get back onto the skateboard, reconsidered and tucked it under his arm and walked it down instead. After a few more steps, he sat on the curb and began checking himself for injuries, not as a guy who’d just hit the pavement face-first at 20 mph, but casually and coolly as if he was yawning and stretching. He checked for blood on his head by running his fingers through his hair like he was Christian Slater (obviously not the the Christian Slater from Gleaming the Cube since that Christian Slater never took spills). The light didn’t turn green for at least 2 minutes after the guy fell so I just sat there watching and wondering when SRZ would give up trying to look cool and give in to the pain and humiliation of wiping out on the street. Not until the guy in the Mini Cooper drives away, apparently.