Penny Larceny...I need to know more!

On a hot July night in 2006, I saw a woman wearing cats eye glasses jam in a roller derby bout at Skate Key in the Bronx, NY.

I was an immediate fan. I loved the glasses. I loved the skating. That night I had my first roller derby crush on a lady named Penny Larceny.

I came to find out in a round about way that she was a graduate of New York University. Me too. The glasses. The alma mater. Wow. There was just something about Penny Larceny that stuck in the back of my mind.

Until last week. Then something unexpectedly got knocked out.

While enjoying a root beer float at my daughter Dorothea's final day of K-4 with all the other Woodlands School parents wondering how they would deal with a child home for the summer, I noticed a woman sitting on the ground in the school parking lot. There was something about this woman that made me say, "Hmmm. I know her." It could have been the cut of her hair, it could have been the cut of her jib, for all that mattered, but what really really caught my eye were those glasses.

She was wearing Penny Larceny's glasses.

No, scratch that, I didn't think she was wearing Penny Larceny's glasses. I thought she was Penny Larceny.

I shook it off, trying to ignore the fact that this woman in the parking lot of a Milwaukee charter school resembled the woman I, as a mad roller derby fan, thought was the bees knees. It seemed unbelievable to imagine that Penny Larceny, my roller derby crush, was sucking down Milwaukee root beer floats with all the neighborhood kiddos. I went about the business of trying to enjoy my daughter's last day of school and tried to avert my eyes from this mysterious stranger.

It basically worked, this veil of ignorance I decided to put on, due in no small part by my need to guide my two-year-old daugher Carmela through a crush of sugar rushed children clamoring to use the monkey bars. Besides, there's no way that Penny Larceny could have been in Milwaukee at that particular moment. It would just have been too freaky to be true.

And then, things really did get freaky true.

I had to take my daughter back into the school building to clean out her cubby before we skirted off into our summer of fun. We entered the building, started down the empty hall towards her classroom, and noticed two other people standing looking at the art work on the wall. One was a student at the school. The other was (you guessed it) that cat's eye glasses wearing lady I had seen on the playground.

I gulped. Here I was face to face with the woman I thought was the bone crusher I had admired from afar, and I was unsure of what to do. Should I approach? Should I just pass her by and write it off as one of life's unsolvable questions? I must have woken that morning with a bigger sense of bold than I do most mornings, because I decided on the spot that I needed to approach.

Now, remember, I had said that I had a round about knowledge through other sources I had in the New York roller derby league that the woman know as Penny Larceny has attended the same college I had, and I believed that we had been students in the same specialized program. I thought quickly that this was a better intro than, "Hey are you my roller derby dream girl?" That one seemed a little too stalkery.

So, I approached and said, "Excuse me, but did you go to the Gallatin School at N.Y.U.?"

The stranger looked at me and said quietly, "No. No I didn't."

I was crushed and relieved all at once. Clearly this was some other cool looking lady who resembled Penny Larceny, but was just a good natured lover of student art in grade school hall ways. I said, "Oh, sorry."

Here's where the freaky factor multiples by a factor of 57. As I was just about to move on with my life, she said, "No, but I did go to N.Y.U."

Boing! The door was open. I had to know. I blurted out, "Did you also happen to skate in the New York Gotham Girls Roller Derby league?"

A sly grin came across the woman's face, and she said, "Yes. As a matter of fact I did."

Holy Shit! Penny Larceny was in my daughter's grade school hallway and I was standing toe to toe with her.

I stammered something about how I knew someone else in the New York league and about how I had seen her skate as research for a roller derby play I had directed (true story, true story). She introduced herself with a firm handshake and told me her name was Megan.

Megan. Just Megan. Not Marauding Megan. Not Megan Pain. Just Megan. Another "Holy Shit!" thought passed through my mind as I stood chatting for a moment with this very kind and sweet young woman.

As we were about to part, I asked, "So what are you doing here?" It was the question that I was dying to know. What, indeed, where you doing here in a public school hallway in the middle of the Midwest when you could be tearing up the banked track and turning more fans into jelly back in the East Coast.

She looked at me and said simply, "I was in New York for about four years, and decided it was time to go. So I came here."

And that was it. I said goodbye, she said goodbye, and we went about our business of getting off the school grounds on the last day of school. She was met by her friend or relative whom I had since decided was the parent or guardian of the kid she was with, and I scooted Dorothea and Carmela towards summer vacation and out of the confines of The Woodlands School.

But now I need to know more.

Do you know Penny Larceny? Do you know this Megan? I want the whole story. I want to know her whole life's tale? What makes a roller derby maven that I remember from years ago suddenly pop up on root beer float day at my daughter's grade school? I'm not stalking, I'm not going to go to any extraordinary means to find out more about Megan formerly known as Penny Larceny, but if you know any more, let me know.

I owe Penny Larceny a beer, and she's owes me her life story.