Speaker 1: Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world.
Speaker 1: I'm Martin and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories,
Speaker 1: of the podcast that takes listener ideas and turns them
Speaker 1: into bedtime stories. Listener ideas like this one.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Owen from San Antonio, Texas, and
Speaker 2: I would like to ask for a planet that everybody
Speaker 2: rollerbladeses on. Thank you. I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: Well, Owen, that is a wonderful idea, and I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we're going to do today, and we'll
Speaker 1: get onto it after a possible word from a possible sponsor.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to close your eyes, get as comfy
Speaker 1: as you can in that bed or wherever it is
Speaker 1: you're hanging out right now, and imagine yourself doing what
Speaker 1: the kid in the story does. You wake up on spaceship.
Speaker 1: Good morning, Spaceship says, good morning, you say, as you
Speaker 1: stretch your arms and swing your legs over the side
Speaker 1: of the bed. I believe I have discovered an interesting planet.
Speaker 1: H what's so interesting about it? You ask, Well, primarily,
Speaker 1: it is interesting because of the way the people of
Speaker 1: the planet travel from place to place. Instead of using
Speaker 1: a car or other reasonable vehicle. These people roller blade
Speaker 1: everywhere the roller blade. I guess that seems cool. Yes,
Speaker 1: their entire society has been developed for the use of
Speaker 1: roller blades. They roller blade down the street, into their houses,
Speaker 1: and even on cross country road trips. How do they
Speaker 1: go cross country on roller blades, you ask? Many of
Speaker 1: them use electric assist blades, motorized roller blades capable of
Speaker 1: travel at over one hundred kilometers or sixty miles per hour.
Speaker 1: What that's insane. If they fell, they'd be like hurt
Speaker 1: really badly. Yes, that is correct. Road rash is also
Speaker 1: a major part of their society. Okay, well, I guess
Speaker 1: we should go check it out. I have taken the
Speaker 1: liberty of setting a course. You leave your bedroom on
Speaker 1: the spaceship and head out to the main area. You
Speaker 1: walk over to the viewscreen where you see spaceship traveling
Speaker 1: at super hyper drive. You quickly grab some breakfast from
Speaker 1: your little breakfast replicator, beat it up, and before you
Speaker 1: know it, spaceship has arrived at an earth like planet.
Speaker 1: You sit down in the control chair and grab a
Speaker 1: hold of the steering wheel. You press forward on the
Speaker 1: throttle and blast down into the atmosphere. You drop below
Speaker 1: the clouds to reveal well a planet with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of cities and roads and infrastructure. It honestly looks
Speaker 1: like Earth at first, until you get a little bit lower,
Speaker 1: when you can make out how all of the people
Speaker 1: are moving around, and sure enough, they're going from place
Speaker 1: to place on roller blades. The inner states are full
Speaker 1: of people and sometimes their children, blasting down the highway
Speaker 1: on what look to be well rocket powered roller blades.
Speaker 1: It looks wildly dangerous they're wearing helmets, but still when
Speaker 1: you get closer to the cities, things seem a little
Speaker 1: more relaxed. There's still main roads full of roller bladers
Speaker 1: traveling at pretty high speeds, but there's also ramps everywhere.
Speaker 1: The entire place looks like a gigantic skate park. People
Speaker 1: moving from building to building on their roller blades, some
Speaker 1: going at a nice, you know, slow and relaxed pace,
Speaker 1: others traveling down skateboard like ramps and blasting over jumps
Speaker 1: performing cool tricks, and others on their rocket powered blades,
Speaker 1: blasting from place to place in the city at incredible speed.
Speaker 1: You find a little area of grass in the middle
Speaker 1: of one of the main cities, surrounded by all sorts
Speaker 1: of skateboard or well roller blade ramps. In this case,
Speaker 1: you carefully land the ship on the open patch of grass.
Speaker 1: The back door opens up and you step outside. This
Speaker 1: place is amazing, you say, as you walk across the
Speaker 1: grass to where some of the rollerbladers are roller blading.
Speaker 3: Hey, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: One of them says and points in your direction. Others
Speaker 1: seem to notice the pointing, and they also turned towards you.
Speaker 1: Everyone looks confused.
Speaker 3: Why why do you have no wheels?
Speaker 1: The boy says. You look down at your feet and
Speaker 1: then back at the kid.
Speaker 3: Oh, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: You move but you.
Speaker 3: Have no wheels? How you do this?
Speaker 1: You mean walking? You just put one foot in front
Speaker 1: of the other until you get where you're going. Everyone
Speaker 1: around you gasps and shock. This is very irregular. You
Speaker 1: must not let the police see you do this. Do
Speaker 1: you not have your roller blades? Oh? Yeah, my roller blades.
Speaker 1: I just left them in the spaceship. Just just one second,
Speaker 1: you walk back into the ship. Spaceship, I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need some roller blades. Pretty quickly I realized the
Speaker 1: same thing. Here, A large robotic arm shoots out of
Speaker 1: one of the walls. Carrying two very high tech looking
Speaker 1: roller blades. I have specially designed these for this planet.
Speaker 1: They are powered by a nuclear diamond battery and capable
Speaker 1: of reaching speeds up to one hundred and fifty kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour. Oh you say, as you grab the roller blades,
Speaker 1: open up the little snaps on the side and slip
Speaker 1: your feed into them. How do I operate them? Well,
Speaker 1: you can operate them manually by using a sort of
Speaker 1: skating motion, or if you wish to engage the electric drive,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is think about engaging the
Speaker 1: electric drive, much like flying in your spacesuit. Ow cool.
Speaker 1: You snap them on and tighten them up. Would you
Speaker 1: like a refresher on rollerblading techniques? Spaceship asks, Uh, yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: you already know a little bit about roller blading, but well,
Speaker 1: a refresher could never hurt. A little helmet drops from
Speaker 1: the ceiling, You place it on your head, close your eyes,
Speaker 1: and almost instantly, memories start to shoot into your brain.
Speaker 1: Memories of roller blading down a nice little path, memories
Speaker 1: of roller blading inside a crazy skate park, going up
Speaker 1: and down a halfpipe, performing spins and flips, and all
Speaker 1: sorts of different maneuvers. When the memories stop, you take
Speaker 1: off the helmet and well, you feel like you could
Speaker 1: do just about anything on roller blades. I have also
Speaker 1: equipped your watches safety mode.
Speaker 4: If you were to.
Speaker 1: Fall suddenly in any situation, an anti gravity mode will
Speaker 1: be initiated, stopping you from slamming into the ground or
Speaker 1: any other object. Uh cool, you say, You head out
Speaker 1: of the ship on your roller blades. You rolled down
Speaker 1: the ramp and straight onto the grass. It isn't easy
Speaker 1: to roller blade on grass, but you initiate the electric
Speaker 1: engines and make your way over to one of the paths.
Speaker 1: Luckily for you, there's paths just about everywhere here. The
Speaker 1: same kid who had pointed at you before for not
Speaker 1: wearing roller blades rolls over towards you. Well, I see
Speaker 1: you found yourself your roller blades. You have to be
Speaker 1: careful around here. If people see you without them, they'll
Speaker 1: ask questions. A sorry, truth is, I'm not actually from
Speaker 1: this planet. I'm from a planet where people walk places
Speaker 1: sometimes other times they drive or you know, all sorts
Speaker 1: of other types of transportation. But you know what I mean, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I do. Well, then, welcome to a planet
Speaker 1: where everybody roller blades. Legend has it. We used to
Speaker 1: have other types of well transportation around here, but slowly
Speaker 1: the government switched to only roller blades. Why did they
Speaker 1: do that, you ask? Well, the official reason is because
Speaker 1: it's awesome and also for environmental reasons, but many of
Speaker 1: us highly suspect that our largest roller blade manufacturer might
Speaker 1: have well influenced the government with a little bit of money. Really,
Speaker 1: you mean somebody bribed the government into making roller blading
Speaker 1: the only form of transportation on this planet. Ah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's how it happened. But well, because
Speaker 1: it's awesome, nobody really complained. Here. Follow me, I'll show
Speaker 1: you around. Well. Name's Blade by the way, the kid says,
Speaker 1: reaching his hand out for a handshake. You shake his hand.
Speaker 1: He looks to be about your age, wearing a high
Speaker 1: tech looking helmet and some high tech looking roller blades.
Speaker 1: He turns away from you and blasts down a ramp
Speaker 1: and off a jump, where he performs a perfect backflip
Speaker 1: before landing on the other side. You shrug your shoulders
Speaker 1: and decide to follow. Using your mind, you initiate the
Speaker 1: electric mode in the roller blades and begin to roll forward.
Speaker 1: It feels a little weird at first for your feet
Speaker 1: to be kind of pulling you, but you get used
Speaker 1: to it quickly. As you fly down the ramp and
Speaker 1: up the gigantic jump on the other side, instinctively you
Speaker 1: perform a perfect backflip before landing on the other side.
Speaker 1: As well. You follow the kid down the ramp through
Speaker 1: a little town like area and out into the city.
Speaker 1: As you can see, when we get everywhere on these things,
Speaker 1: blade says as he jumps over another gigantic gap and
Speaker 1: lands on the other side with ease. You increase your
Speaker 1: speed and blast over easily as well. Now the whole
Speaker 1: place has been set up for roller blades. You can
Speaker 1: skate right into any store. There's ramps pretty much everywhere
Speaker 1: you need to go. And well, of course there's a
Speaker 1: small division between travel blading and roller blading itself. If
Speaker 1: you want to go on the main roads, you have
Speaker 1: to have blades capable of reaching highway speeds at minimum
Speaker 1: eighty kilometers an hour. Oh, can your roller blades do that?
Speaker 1: Of course they can. Want to see what about you?
Speaker 1: Are those things capable? I think? So a blade comes
Speaker 1: to a stop beside the road and rolls over onto
Speaker 1: the thing all right, let's merge with traffic. Three two,
Speaker 1: one go. He blasts onto the road and merges with
Speaker 1: other roller bladers, some moving at incredible speed with what
Speaker 1: look to be electric roller blades, and others, as you
Speaker 1: had seen before, wearing what looked like rocket powered roller blades.
Speaker 1: You quickly increase the speed of your blades to blast
Speaker 1: through the city quickly enough, and before long you're going
Speaker 1: in excess of one hundred kilometers an hour about sixty miles.
Speaker 1: You blast around a long, gradual bend and not a
Speaker 1: gigantic ramp, onto a huge overpass. The overpass moves through
Speaker 1: the city above most of it. You fly past huge
Speaker 1: skyscrapers and all kinds of different on ramps and off
Speaker 1: ramps to different parts of the city. You watch as
Speaker 1: other roller bladers merge onto the highway, some of them
Speaker 1: pushing smaller children in what look like strollers. You can't
Speaker 1: imagine it's the safest way to get kids around, but
Speaker 1: it does look pretty cool. Hey, uh, follow me. There's
Speaker 1: actually a really cool competition going on today. We can
Speaker 1: go check it out. You blast to the right down
Speaker 1: and off ramp and straight on to another highway, one
Speaker 1: that leads out of the city. The skyscrapers disappear as
Speaker 1: you fly by on the road, and slowly you start
Speaker 1: to see well normal sized houses and must be the
Speaker 1: suburbs or something like that. Soon the houses disappear and
Speaker 1: are replaced by fields, fields being farmed by farmers who,
Speaker 1: instead of driving tractors, seem to be wearing gigantic, oversized
Speaker 1: roller blades that somehow push across fields and hull plows
Speaker 1: and things behind them. It's wildly odd and seems incredibly inefficient,
Speaker 1: but huh, it is what it is. Soon you see
Speaker 1: a large mountain in the distance. Blade gestures for you
Speaker 1: to follow them, so you do. You head off the
Speaker 1: off ramp up a little mountain road that starts winding
Speaker 1: up the huge mountain, around and around and around until
Speaker 1: you arrive at the top, where a large crowd of
Speaker 1: people are gathered and some guy with a microphone is
Speaker 1: announcing things. Well, come, ladies and gentlemen, two a monthly
Speaker 1: downhill roller blating competition. As you know, contestants will be
Speaker 1: competing for this giant pile of gold. He points over
Speaker 1: to a pile of gold, gold and jewels shining in
Speaker 1: the sunshine like some sort of pirate treasure. You all
Speaker 1: know the rules, but of course we've made it more
Speaker 1: interesting than ever. We've added more jumps, more gaps, and
Speaker 1: more deadly traps than ever, and as always, were sponsored
Speaker 1: by roller Wheels. The only roller blades officially approved by
Speaker 1: the government. Use roller wheels or be arrested. That seems
Speaker 1: strange to you. Ah, are you only allowed to use
Speaker 1: one type of roller blade here? You ask? Ah? Oh,
Speaker 1: you mean roller wheels. Yeah, that's the giant roller blade
Speaker 1: company I was talking to you about. Uh. There used
Speaker 1: to be competitors, but nowadays roller wheels are the only
Speaker 1: ones you're allowed to buy. That is what you're wearing. Right.
Speaker 1: You look down at your roller blades and back up
Speaker 1: at blade. I don't think mine have a brand name.
Speaker 1: Exactly overhearing the competition, a police officer on his own
Speaker 1: roller blades glides in. Excuse me, sir, did you just
Speaker 1: say that your roller blades are not, in fact roller
Speaker 1: Wheel brand roller blades. I believe you'll have to come
Speaker 1: with me, sir. You quickly back away from the officer. Hey,
Speaker 1: back off. Just because I'm not wearing roller Wheel brand
Speaker 1: roller blades doesn't mean that I couldn't well roller blade
Speaker 1: better than any of you. The whole crowd gasps, uh, sir,
Speaker 1: it is highly illegal to be using anything but roller
Speaker 1: Wheel brand roller blades. I'm gonna have to take you
Speaker 1: in for some questioning and possible retraining. I'm not going
Speaker 1: anywhere with you, you say an Almost immediately, spaceship appears overhead.
Speaker 1: Large freeze rays shoot out of it and point down
Speaker 1: at the crowd. Everybody gasps again, looking up at the thing.
Speaker 1: Then the announcer speaks, Oh, ladies and gentlemen, let's calm
Speaker 1: down a bit here. Ah, Perhaps we don't have to
Speaker 1: be too hasty. It's clear from the giant menacing spaceship
Speaker 1: flying overhead that this particular person isn't from around here
Speaker 1: and may just not have been aware of the superior
Speaker 1: quality of roller wheels the official sponsor of this competition, Now,
Speaker 1: why don't we show him how good they are instead
Speaker 1: of arresting him. Let's turn this little thing into a
Speaker 1: bit of a competition. If the young person here will accept,
Speaker 1: you simply shrug your shoulders in response, very good, Then
Speaker 1: come on up here and join the competition, young one.
Speaker 1: If you win, we will allow you to wear your
Speaker 1: off brand roller blades anywhere on the planet any time
Speaker 1: you wish. However, if you lose, you must promise to
Speaker 1: only wear roller wheels. And if you're accidentally unlive from
Speaker 1: this absolutely dangerous and crazy competition, well it shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be a problem.
Speaker 1: That worries you for a second until you remember the
Speaker 1: whole well anti gravity device that's in your watch. You
Speaker 1: probably can't get hurt in any way on this particular competition.
Speaker 1: So you skate over to the starting line and look
Speaker 1: left and right at your competitors, all of them wearing
Speaker 1: roller wheels brand roller skates, helmets and full leather outfits,
Speaker 1: looking completely ready for a crazy down hill race. You
Speaker 1: look down the hill itself too, a gigantic skateboard ramp
Speaker 1: that flies off the side of the cliff and heads
Speaker 1: directly towards an enormous jump before wrapping around and spirals
Speaker 1: heading down the mountain. You see a water pit that
Speaker 1: looks like it's filled with alligators or something. You see
Speaker 1: a section with very strange contraptions on the left and right,
Speaker 1: and you even see a full loop to loop contestants
Speaker 1: a you ready, ah, you set go, The gates open,
Speaker 1: and you and the others head down the first gigantic hill.
Speaker 1: You increase your speed slightly to keep up with the
Speaker 1: other bladers. As you hit the first gigantic jump, you
Speaker 1: fly across an enormous gap, and just for fun, you
Speaker 1: perform a perfect backflip. As you slowly spin upside down,
Speaker 1: you look below to the pit of water that clearly
Speaker 1: as alligators swimming in it. You continue the flip and
Speaker 1: land easily on the other side. Well, one of the
Speaker 1: main contestants slips on the landing and blasts over towards
Speaker 1: the edge. It looks rather painful. You make your way
Speaker 1: into a series of corkscrew turns, around and around and
Speaker 1: around as you head down the mountain and then through
Speaker 1: through that strange area with the weird contraptions on the side.
Speaker 1: The weird contraptions suddenly activate, sending lasers across the path,
Speaker 1: some of them high, some of them low. Clearly it's
Speaker 1: time to start dodging. You duck under the first jump,
Speaker 1: over the second, turn, sort of sideways over the third,
Speaker 1: and for the last one. There's a series of lasers
Speaker 1: in a line, so many that you can't jump upward
Speaker 1: without well reaching the exact position you'd need to fit
Speaker 1: between two of them. You quickly turn sideways, fly through
Speaker 1: the air, straighten your body and make it straight through
Speaker 1: the lasers. You watch as two of your competitors hit
Speaker 1: them and are immediately electrified. It doesn't look deadly, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't look painless either. You spin your body, land
Speaker 1: on the ground, and head straight towards the loop to loop.
Speaker 1: There's only two other competitors still with you. You look behind
Speaker 1: you to see both of them, and mentally you speed
Speaker 1: up your roller blades faster and faster, heading straight into
Speaker 1: the loop to loop, You try to keep dead center
Speaker 1: as you go up in the air, around the loop
Speaker 1: and down the other side. You made it, and then
Speaker 1: you see five more of the things. Oh, this is
Speaker 1: gonna make me dizzy. You continue straight down the ramp,
Speaker 1: straight in the center as you go around the first,
Speaker 1: the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and you
Speaker 1: enter in into another large ramp area with a gigantic jump.
Speaker 1: On the other side, another huge gap, this time filled
Speaker 1: with jagged rocks, is approaching. You launch off the thing
Speaker 1: straight up into the air, and again you perform a
Speaker 1: long and slow front flip. The crowd cheers as you
Speaker 1: blast through the air and gracefully land on the other side.
Speaker 1: You zoom down the ramp and skid to a halt
Speaker 1: right across the finish line, ahead by enough to watch
Speaker 1: the others fly off the last ramp. One of them
Speaker 1: lands in trees off to the side, luckily looking well,
Speaker 1: minorly injured but generally okay, while the other lands perfectly
Speaker 1: and slides in beside you. The crowd goes crazy. The
Speaker 1: announcer from above the mountain slides into view on his
Speaker 1: very own rollerblades. He looks unhappy. He picks up the microphone.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that our alien visitor has
Speaker 1: won the competition. Everyone cheers again. So has promised we
Speaker 1: will give them an exemption to the roller wheel's monopoly.
Speaker 1: The crowd cheers again, but the announcer doesn't look particularly happy.
Speaker 1: Blade slides up beside you. Wow, that was amazing, and
Speaker 1: even more amazing that you showed those ros the wheels people.
Speaker 1: What's what? Oh cool? I want to come hang out
Speaker 1: for a bit of my place, maybe another time, you say,
Speaker 1: I think I should probably get out of here. Spaceship
Speaker 1: hovers down above you and opens the back hatch. A
Speaker 1: little rope drops down. You grab a hold of it
Speaker 1: and it lifts you up into the air, straight onto
Speaker 1: the ramp. You roll into the ship, turn around and
Speaker 1: wave goodbye as the back hatch closes. Well did you
Speaker 1: have fun, Spaceship asks, Yeah, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: I made for a planet where everybody rolled their blades
Speaker 1: all the time. That whole roller wheels thing is a
Speaker 1: bit weird, agreed, Spaceship says, you, uebuckle the roller blades,
Speaker 1: place them beside the couch, and lay down on it.
Speaker 1: You close your eyes, and with each breath your body
Speaker 1: begins to sink down into the couch. You let your
Speaker 1: arms relax, you let go of the tension, and your legs,
Speaker 1: your shoulders, your neck, and even your face. And with
Speaker 1: each breath you sink down a little more. And the
Speaker 1: more you breathe, the better you feel, and the better
Speaker 1: you feel, the deeper you sink, until your mind wanders
Speaker 1: off to thoughts of new dreams and new adventures.
Speaker 4: Mist to come good night everyone.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 5: Never union.
Speaker 6: Mc n new yor.
Speaker 5: More than union of things mo Nan Union h