SAN JOSE — Local middle-aged guy Tom O’Donnell admitted he exclusively skates the curbs surrounding urgent care parking lots in order to increase the efficiency of getting care for his inevitable injuries, confirmed sources close to the man.
“I don’t want to give up skating, but I am one sprained more sprained ankle away from bankruptcy. There’s no way I could afford an ambulance ride across town and my kid’s daycare in the same month. Luckily a lot of the older guys in town have already waxed the curbs behind more of the urgent care facilities,” said O’Donnell, mummifying his left leg in athletic braces. “A couple of the maintenance dudes that work there skate during their lunch breaks so they tell me when the best doctors are working, so I make sure I plan my sessions around their schedules. And the best part is this place actually takes my shitty insurance.”
Other middle-aged skaters that flock to the parking lot are catching the notice of the urgent care staff.
“Once that screen printing business opened down the block we saw an influx of skate-related injuries that happen on our property. The waiting room has been a triage ward of middle-aged injuries,” said Grace Holden, a nurse at the urgent care. “We had to start rationing the lidocaine patches, and I can’t take two steps without tripping over a guy laying on the floor because he threw his back out and all they want to talk about is some guy named Andrew Allen. If we get any more sprained ankles today we’re going to have to start tearing towels to make wraps.”
Local rent-a-cops tasked with patrolling the city’s parking lots admit they do not share the same enthusiasm as the skaters.
“I’m sick and tired of slowly chasing these damned punk middle-aged skaters off the lot,” said security guard Glenn Crosby, scratching a local brewery sticker off a railing. “They leave their empty ibuprofen bottles everywhere, and even when they’re not skating they just loiter here for hours, icing their knees. These guys need to grow up and go hang out at a Home Depot like normal middle-aged guys.”
Though the urgent care lot remained popular, a rift soon formed in the city’s middle-aged skate scene as those without corporate insurance preferred to just chance it at the local Walgreens parking lot.