Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby jennifer » Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:50 pm

Hello everyone, Jennifer here again as always. I have some free time on my hands so I thought I would begin my next TUG story for this site. If you read the title of this story it gives an implication of where it’s going. I will be the first to admit I did some dumb things when I was a kid. Especially when I was a teenager. This one ended up a disaster for me. I have been a little reluctant to post this story on the web because of the obvious dangers it poses. I mean the dangerous idea it might put in somebody’s head. Let me be clear about this, don’t try this at home. It was a dumb idea in the first place and I ended up paying for it pretty dearly as you will see at the end of the story. Also, my parents don’t know the details in it yet and I was a little reluctant to tell them. Oh well this was about a decade ago give or take. I think they can forgive me for it by now. Anyways, here we go I home everyone enjoys the story.

It was Summer the year I was 16. This is the prequel to one another story about how I spent a good deal of quality time with my sister Mary. I think it was a Tuesday in early June and most of the siblings in my family were together. School had let out the week before and we were all on Summer vacation. Sean was home from college and had the day off from work. Scott did as well. At 16 I had thought about getting a part time job for some money as well that summer. My parents had told me that I could if I kept my grades up and everything else worked out. Scott had already snagged me an interview at the fast food place where he worked. It would be the following week. It was a rare occasion for all of us to have a day off together and we planned to spend it doing something together as a group. The four of us had planned to spend the day outside at a local park skating and doing some other fun activities.

The four of us had all gotten up, dressed and eaten breakfast around 8 the morning or so. The plan was to leave around 9 and come back just before dinner time. Sean and I had gotten up earlier than the rest of the group to make a lunch for everyone to share. It was just chips, sandwiches, pop, and some desert that we threw into a small cooler. Still it would be a welcome meal out side. Everyone had already been up and added sunscreen and gotten their gear together for the trip. The four of us climbed out of the house and began to load everything into the back of Sean’s Van. The van easily seated 7 people and had plenty of room in the back for all of our gear and Sean’s bike. My older brother wasn’t going to skate. He had gotten out of the habit of it, but was more than willing to drive to the event and accompany us to our destination.

Our father was working that day and our mother wasn’t going to accompany us. She had some errands to run in town and would be out most of the morning. She would be back well before we got home for the day. She didn’t have a problem with us going out as a group. She had let Sean take the rest of us to a playground near by the house since he was 12. I was 16 now and Scott was 17. We were more than old enough to look after ourselves. Not to mention that Sean was coming with us as well. The only person who was in question on this outing was Amy. She was 6 at the time of the story. Originally, my mother was going to take her along with her for errands in the morning and keep her home. Our route had been predetermined and it would make taking my little sister along a little more difficult. We were going to drive a good 10 miles from our house to the start of a bike trail that ran through our area. The trail ran behind our high school and we figured we could leave the van their for the day. The plan was to disembark from there and head down the trail for about 2 or 3 miles. I don’t remember the exact distance that it ran. The park was an older part of the community. It had several sports fields, a small playground, two pavilions and a lot of sidewalk and a big blacktop parking lot. Hardly anyone went there anymore since the school had added several more athletic fields to their grounds. Still, it was a fun place to play and it had plenty of room for skating. There was road access to the park, but we usually took the bike trail in when we went. It was just the way of things. Sometimes I would go there after school with Amber and Shelly and my parents or one of my brothers would pick me up later there.

It would have been quicker to drive directly there, but the bike path offered a more scenic route and that was the way we had planned to go. The issue here was that we planned to roller blade into the park from the high school. Amy wanted to go along with us. She didn’t want to be left out of the fun. However, our parents had told her that she wasn’t going with us originally. Amy was barely able to roller skate at this point in her life. She had been learning for about a year now. She had the balance down on the toy skates she had, but she lacked any of the speed that we had. My mother didn’t want her to spoil our trip in by making us take such a slow time. Plus she didn’t want to dump Amy off on us for the day. This was going to be a Teenager’s day out and Amy was a little young for the group. It was a mutually accepted decision by everyone but my little sister of course.

About an 10 minutes after she learned she wasn’t growing she ended up on the floor throwing one of the biggest tantrums I ever remember her having. She cried and protested that she wanted to go. We got the usual “I never get to do anything with the big kids!!” As well as several other complaints out of her. Our mother had raised 4 children before my sister and knew this would pass. She didn’t cave an inch. However, Sean and I did. My older brother said she could come and join us for a while as long as she behaved. I agreed with him on that point. Taking Amy along for the day wasn’t all that big of a deal and it would make her happy. Scott wasn’t as enthusiastic about the whole idea, but he was okay with it as long as he didn’t have to take responsibility for Amy. Besides it saved on all of our ear drums.

Originally, the compromise was that we were going to make the trip out to the park in the morning without Amy. She would go along with my mother into town and she would drop my sister off on her way back at the park later in the day. Amy was less than thrilled with that idea as well. She didn’t want to go shopping with my Mom in the morning. My brother didn’t fight the matter. He just told my parents and Amy that she could come with us when we first set out in the morning. That way my mother could have a day to herself and Amy could have what she wanted. That was part of the reason that Sean was bringing his bike rather than skating like the rest of us. (We had an ulterior motive for this offer, but that I am going to save for later in the story.) My mother agreed reluctantly and packed Amy’s skates and gear into a bag. Once she heard my brother’s contingent plans. She gave us a lecture about keeping an eye on Amy and told Sean to make sure my little sister wore her pads and helmet at the park. With everything loaded into the car the 4 of us were making a final tally as our guests showed up.

It was going to be a larger groups of people that we had originally planned for. I had made two invites almost out of habit as soon as I learned that we had room in the van for them. Amber’s car pulled up and parked in the street in front of our house. She was the only one out of my circle of 3 friends who was driving at this point. Shelly and I had our learning permits, but I was a slow learner and it was hard to find someone who had time to teach me. Scott wasn’t an adult yet, and my mother didn’t have the patience for the matter. My father took me out once a week or so, but his work schedule didn’t allow him time to teach me often. Mary worked and Sean was in college. My eldest brother had been planning to teach me this summer. I was looking forward to getting my license.

Amber exited her car and circle around to the trunk to collect a bag that contained her skates and a few items for lunch. About 5 or 6 minutes later, Shelly came on foot from down the block with hers over her shoulder. I had a fairly wide circle of friends at high school. However, Amber and Shelly were my closest two (and the only ones I played tie up with on a regular basis.) It was about 15 minutes after that, when our final guest arrived for the outing. You’ll probably remember him from one of my other stories, Brandon. He had met Scott in the scouts and they had become close friends all the way through high school. When Scott found out that I had invited my two friends he wanted Brandon to join us as well. A quick phone call and our group had grown from it’s original 3 to 7 in size.

Sean’s van, or minivan I should say was soon loaded to the brim with gear and passengers. I am not sure which it was, it only had seating for 7, but it had a good 3 feet of cargo room behind the third row of seating. It wasn’t the most popular type of vehicle for a man of his age to be driving. But, at the price of free, when my mother hand changed over to a newer vehicle he couldn’t pass on it. The van was older and had some miles on it, but it still ran well and it was perfect for when you wanted to hall lots of people around. Sean’s older piece of junk car had gone onto Scott. I was afraid that there wouldn’t be much left of it when it got passed onto me. The old thing was on it’s last legs. With everything in place, the 7 of us boarded the van and got ready to be on our way. Sean was at the controls of the van. Amy was in her car seat in the second row with Scott beside her. Brandon was awarded shotgun for his late arrival. I was harnessed in the center of the furthest back seat in the middle with my vest on. Shelly and Amber were on either side of me. Sean started the engine and soon the 7 of us were on our way to the short drive we planned to take to the height school.

The ride was a short one of about 12 or 15 minutes. Even at 25 mph and several stop signs and traffic lights along the way, the high school wasn’t all that far from our house. Although the rout my bus driver took sometimes made it seem a lot longer. It wasn’t long before Sean had turned off the engine and I was busy about unclipping the harness vest from the back seat to release myself. Scott helped Amy out of her car seat and the rest of the crew went about unloading the ban. Scott had taken his bike off the rack on the rear of the van when he first got out of the van. Then he began unloading the rest of the stuff. He and my brother Scott were busy hooking up the trailer to it from behind. The rest of us were gearing up and helping Amy with her stuff as well.


I guess I should take a moment and go over what everyone was wearing at the moment. (I do have a photo from this outing of all of us standing together before the beginning of the day. We posed for it at the at the start before we departed and used some of the ropes and other stuff involved with this undertaking. I am not going to post it because I don’t post pictures of myself or my family online period.)

Shelly was in a tank top and a pair of cocky shorts with white socks at the moment. Amber was in green track pants (nylon wind pants) and a matching short sleeve t-shirt. I was in a light blue dress with short sleeves that came down just past my knees. My little sister had on a yellow sundress without sleeves that was a little shorter in length proportional to my own and a pair of pink jelly fisherman style sandals to match it. Scott and Sean were both in T-shirts and Jean shorts with socks and tennis shoes. Sean was in red and Scott was in white. There were logos on most of the T-shirts but I am not going to put them here. Well, that about covers what everyone was wearing. My brothers hadn’t changed much from previous stories physically They were both a little taller and a little stronger, but that was about it. Amber had shot up like a tree the last few years and I was more than 8 or 9 inches over my head now. Shelly had stayed in the middle approaching woman hood. I was still the runt of the group. But that didn’t matter. We were all friends together to have a good time.

Sean and Scott finished connecting the bike trailer to the back of my brother’s vehicle. It was the same old bike trailer that I had rode in a few years earlier when I was a kid. It was just one of those covered canopy seats that could hold two children and hall them behind you like a stroller. Today, it was primarily meant to store the cooler with lunch in it. The park we were going to is the same one from one of my earlier stories. It had changed quite a bit over the decade between the two of them. We could have gotten their faster in a couple of other ways, but we has purposely chosen to take the scenic route today. We were going skating when we got there and the bike trail offered a smooth an beautiful view for the trip in. Once the trailer was secure, we started gearing up for the trip down.

Half of our group, myself included was wearing a set of roller blades of one color or another. Shelly was the one older exception to the group. She had elected for the more traditional quad wheeled roller skates. She never quite got the hang of roller bladding, but that didn’t keep her from coming. Sean wasn’t wearing skates as he planned to take his bike on the trip. Amy was the third member of our group without roller blades. At the age of 6 she was far from ready for them. She had a set of those little yellow and blue fisher price roller skates if you know what I mean. They are the type that Velcro on over your shoes and have the plastic yellow toes and heels with the yellow wheels. The also have a switch on the bottom that can keep the wheels from turning. She was getting a little big for them, and had long since mastered wearing them, but my little sister wasn’t ready for normal skates just yet.

In addition to skates, most of us had on some sort of safety equipment to supplement our outing. Scott and Sean both had bike helmets on and Sean added knee pads as well. Helmets were sort of a mandatory thing with my mother although wearing pads as we got older got to be a matter of preference. Amber hand on knee, elbow, and wrist pads, but didn’t wear a helmet skating. The remaining three of us were in full gear. Shelly and I had always worn the three main sets of pads and a helmet while skating and I wasn’t going to try what I was about to attempt without them. Amy was too young to have any say in the matter. By the way, the helmets were just normal bike helmets. I hadn’t worn anything fancy like I had when I was a younger kid. Once all of us were geared up Sean had us stand in front of his bike while he took a photo with a disposable camera. Then we started really getting ready for the trip.

Sean started out by asking my younger sister whether she wanted to skate down with the rest of us or if she wanted to ride in the bike trailer next to the cooler. Originally we told my parents that we were taking the trailer along so that Amy would have a mode of transportation down to the park. She wasn’t anywhere near the rest of us in speed. But we had all day and it didn’t matter what pace we took to get there. Amy wanted to skate down like the rest of the big kids of course. I couldn’t say that I blame her. The other choice was being harnessed in the back of Sean’s bike trailer.

Sean just shrugged and dumped the cooler and a duffle bag in the rear of the trailer in the center of the seat. Now it was time for the events of the day to really begin. Sean walked back to the front of the car and deposited the camera in the glove box. We had an unspoken agreement that pictures were never to be taken when we were tied up. Plus, if one was and my mother saw it I would probably get into pretty big trouble over the whole thing back then. Sean closed and locked the doors after making sure that he had his cell phone and car keys. Then he mounted his bike and our group of six wheeled its way down towards the beginning of the bike trail. The boys and Amber set a pretty quick pace across the blacktop to the start of the trail. Shelly and I remained behind to give Amy a more comfortable pace for her age. She was about 1/3 the speed that we normally would go. My little sister was sure enough of her balance, but the plastic toy roller skates didn’t allow for much speed. The first half of our group went about 25 feet or so down the trail and then halted to wait for the rest of us to catch up.

Once we stopped, Sean had dismounted his bike and place the kick stand down to keep it upright. Then he reached into the small pouch on the back of his bike and pulled out the rope. The first two pieces he removed were our normal white cotton clothes line each about 15 feet in length or so. “So, Jen you ready to do this or what little sister.” She offered with a smile as he tossed one of the pieces of rope to Scott. I nodded and turned around leaving my back exposed to my older brother. I should note to everyone that this was really a stupid thing to do and I DON’T RECOMMEND TRYING THIS YOURSELF. Sean approached behind me and took hold of my wrists. He lead my arms upwards toward the upper middle of my back. He brought my hands together with my forearms folded over each other behind my back making a right angles at my elbow. This was a new technique that he had learned during his time at college on how to tie someone up. It was extremely effective and escape proof.

The idea is pretty simple, you have the captive fold their forearms over each other behind the back. Then you tie the wrists together at the forearms. My brother began by tying one end of the rope off around right wrist. Then he began coil the rope around my wrists at the forearms and worked his way down to the other wrists. In total, the tie probably covered about 8 to 10 inches of my arms between the wrists. Then he wrapped the tail around the middle of the tie once to cinch it down a little tighter and knitted it off on the bottom in the middle. This left my arms folded over each other with my hands facing downward at the opposite side behind the back. This form of being tied up was pretty effective because it took all of the elbows normal mobility out of the tie and pinned the arms in the middle of the upper back. It was completely impossible to bring my hands to the front with them tied this way. Especially with roller blades on my feet.

Sean patted me on the shoulder and asked me, “There Jennifer, all done how is that?” I gave the ropes a few good tugs and realized almost instantly that I wasn’t getting out of this. I replied that I was well secured and I began to look around at the other situation as it unfolded. While Sean had been busy securing me, Scott had gone ahead and tied Amber’s hands together in front of her. Once he was done securing her hands, my brother reproached Sean. Scott then allowed Sean to tie his hands together in front of him as well. With that the three of us were secured a little better for the trip ahead.

The idea to be tied up and skate at the same time was nothing new to us. We had done it several times growing up at home on and off for a couple of minutes here or there. Scott and I were particularly adept at doing it. My balance was pretty good even without the use of my hand to steady myself. Still, I was the only one in the group who tried it with the arms behind the back. Scott had once and ended up on his butt hard. Usually, the game lasted about half an hour our until my mother caught us. She didn’t approve of the idea and it usually ended with a safety lecture and a threat to take skating away if we did it again. I had wanted to try this for quite a while and now we were going to get a chance. The plan was to spend the whole day with my skates on and my hands tied.

With a final tug on my hands and everything seeming secure the 6 of us prepared for our departure of the day. I did follow my plan for most of the day. It worked out pretty well at first and I had a good time. Still, even with the best laid plans can go wrong especially when you do something this dumb. I am going to stop here for the time being as this is getting to be a long story and I want to get it posted before it becomes 12 pages or so. I will finish it shortly enough so stay tuned.

Jennifer

Re: Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby kidnapper » Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:07 pm

good ,but don't think too long for a introduction?

Re: Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby Amagi420 » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:37 pm

I do have a photo from this outing of all of us standing together before the beginning of the day. We posed for it at the at the start before we departed and used some of the ropes and other stuff involved with this undertaking. I am not going to post it because I don’t post pictures of myself or my family online period.



why don't you just blur out the faces?
Any other lifejacket/five point harness/safety gear fans out there? Shoot me a message!

Re: Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby ReaderG » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:13 pm

To the last two posters:

Jennifer's stories tell a lot about her experiences and those of her family and friends. She doesn't need to post pictures which would embarras her siblings and friends. Respect her and enjoy her tales, her details are what makes her stories special. Read the whole series here and/or on her website, and you will understand the way her family was into tie-ups and how they always treated each other with respect. Also please note that she can tell a good story without venturing even into the PG-13 realm, and that she is a master of the cliffhanger. She also has a couple of other authors on her site who also write great stories and don't post here. Gothit's artwork will give you an idea of what she was into.
Gerry

Re: Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby Amagi420 » Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:18 pm

perhaps I need to make myself more clear then. I was not suggesting that the level of detail was in any way bad or that the store was at all lacking and I was not disrespecting Jennifer in any way. I have read and plan on continuing to read much of Jennifer's writings. Being a media arts student I instantly thought of face bluing when Jen mentioned about not wanting her own or the faces of her family members on the internet (an option I completely agree with) Jen has included pictures of objects in her story's many times on her own website in order to paint a more vivid picture of the story (a picture tells a thousand words) I was mealy offering a solution to her dilemma. As for the PG13 Jen has said numerous times that they never took pictures of each other when they were tied up so I don't see how that comes in here at all, and I don't see how a picture of a group of friends is in any way "embarrassing" to her family members.
Any other lifejacket/five point harness/safety gear fans out there? Shoot me a message!

Re: Ropes and Skates (Good Combination?) Part 1: Introduction.

Postby jennifer » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:43 am

Hi all,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this story. I have been a little busy as of late around here. I have a personal matter that has been taking up a lot of my time lately. I am planning on continuing my work with the story here in the next few days. I thought I would take a moment and comment on all the response that I have gotten on this work. First, I appreciate all the feed back and the couple of you who took the time to stick up for me on the issue of the photo.

The first thing that I should comment on is that I know this was a long piece for an introduction. I planned to go furthur into the story, but I wanted all the details in and it took me quite a few more words than I thought it would just to get to where I am in the story so far. I felt after taking the time that I did to write this part of the story that it wasn't far enough into the action for it to really be a story on its own. That's why I called it the introduction. That and I posted it late an night before I was going to bed and I couldn't come up with a better title.

Now, onto the bigger issue of the photo I have. I think that it would do me some good to comment that this photo is the case of most of the photographs that I had as a kid. I have already given my thoughts and feelings about posting my own photos online several times. I feel entitled to my privacy on that issue and I prefer not to post photos from when I was a kid. Suppose that isn't the case, most of the photos that I have from when I was a kid are getting rather aged. My family never owned a good camera. We usually just used the disposable ones or the couple of permanent ones that we had were not all that good to begin with. This was long before the age of digital photography at least as we know it today. The second issue is that the only way that I can get the pictures on the computer is with my scanner which, is at least 10 years old. It takes it about half an hour to scan a picture to begin with and even then the quality is pretty low.

Also, after I do that, the scanner saves the photo as a bitmap image about 2 or 3 megabites in size. Then I need to shrink it down, change the format and then edit out the faces if I am going to post something. I really am not that good with imaging software and the only thing I really have to work with is microsoft paint. By the time I am all done with this, what I have left is really worth posting. Then I have to find some place to host the picture and then post a link to it. In all it would take me at least an hour to post one picture. That is time that I can spend writting or doing something else. I just don't forsee the benifit of going through all that for one picture where nobody is even tied up. I know there are a couple of images on my website of odds and ends. However, I find these pictures online and just download them and upload them to my website. Mostly I post a picture if I am having trouble describing something and I want show what it looks like. I really just don't feel taht uploading a picture from my own collection is worth all that trouble.

I am not trying to be negative here. I just thought I would explain better why I don't post my own pictures here. Anyways. with that aside, I have a story to keep writting. I should have the next part posted in the next few days.

Jennifer