I am a man of many passions. I work at the Bib Factory. I tend to my bougainvilleas. I love my wife, Tabitha, and our sons, Thaxton and Dramothy. I have many passions that fill my day and my heart.

But there is one passion that stands out above the rest. One activity that instills a fiery desire in my heart and an insatiable thirst in my loins.

I’m referring, of course, to kickflips.

What are kickflips, you ask? Oh, you poor tortured soul! You have yet to feel the wind in your hair as you ride your skating board as fast as your unwieldy body can push it. You know nothing of the rush of adrenaline you experience as you throw yourself skyward, your board flipping in the air beneath you like a koi fish thrown from my neighbor’s pond. You haven’t felt your heart and body soar in tandem before returning safely to the ground with your board as Thaxton and Dramothy cheer you on from several yards away.

I pity you unfortunate souls. I wish you knew how it felt to package your last bib of the day and walk past your f*ckface manager Greg as he yells “Hey Carl, my son said he saw you practicing kickflips alone at the skate park the other day! Who do you think you are, Tony Hawk?” I wish you knew how hard it was to ignore the laughs and jeers of your coworkers as you clocked out and walked to the parking lot. And I wish you knew how good it felt to see the look on Carl’s stupid face when you skated past him in the parking lot, executed a flawless kickflip, and say, “Tony Hawk is a fool and a liar who married his best friend’s wife. I am Carl Sorthenstein and I love kickflips and also my wife” before slowly skating the 45 minutes back home.

At this point, you might be crying or nervous-sweating or trying to turn your computer into a skating board – anything to taste the sweet majesty of the kickflip for yourself. But it is my solemn duty to inform you that the kickflip is a double-edged sword, because my wife Tabitha doesn’t allow either in the house.

While you may expect my entire family, nay, my entire bloodline, to unite and rejoice in the face of an unprecedented display of athletic prowess like myself, sometimes my kickflips interfere with my responsibilities as a father, husband, and all-around family man. For example, last Saturday I was in the driveway kicking flips when Tabitha left for work. (She works at a rival bib factory across town.) “Carl, please pick up Thaxton and Dramothy from the roller rink at 4,” she said, in a tone that implied she did not think I would pick up Thaxton and Dramothy from the roller rink at 4. I avoided eye contact and muttered, “Kickflips are life” before kicking another flip. (Flawlessly, of course.) Tabitha put her hand on my shoulder. “Carl, please don’t spend the entire afternoon doing kickflips, okay?” I looked up and vigorously nodded at the mention of kickflips, although in retrospect she might have thought I was agreeing to pick up our sons from the roller rink.

Later that night, Tabitha came home with Thaxton and Dramothy in the backseat. She was not happy. “Carl, why didn’t you pick up the boys from the roller rink? They were waiting in the parking lot for three hours!” I kicked my skating board, but not in the cool way where it flips – in the angry way, where it hurts my foot. “No sons of mine will be riding around on rolling skates! They will use the skating boards I bought them, and god darn it, they will use them for kickflips!” I thought I made a pretty good point, but Tabitha was still angry. I slept on the couch that night.

But these are the sacrifices we make for our passions. No one can stop me from kicking flips – not Greg, not Tabitha, not even the wife-stealer Tony Hawk. I will continue doing what I love until that sweet day when I kickflip into my grave.