On Wednesday video circulated around social media in which an unidentified man — we’ll call him ‘the protagonist’ — wearing nothing but an oversized panda costume head and rollerblades ripped his way down I-670 in Columbus, Ohio holding a selfie stick. The video appears to be from this week, which saw daily high temperatures no more than 34 degrees F in the greater Columbus area. I’m guessing this bare-assed bear was real damn cold, no matter how hot his blade skills are.
The protagonist committed the perfect crime. Taking a non-motorized mode of transportation on the interstate is illegal, of course. While putting themselves, and perhaps other gawking motorists in danger, this looks to have turned out to be a victimless crime. Further, by obscuring their facial features with the bear mascot head, it’s unlikely they’ll get caught.
Even better, Ohio DOT traffic cameras were facing the other direction at the time of the event, meaning without this van-captured video they’d have gotten away without even being documented! According to local news station NBC4i, traffic cameras at exit 3, Neil Avenue, were facing west that day, and thus did not catch the Panda Express skating east. I’m sure it was an Ocean’s 11-style crime, involving a Ben Affleck-type hacking a government terminal to get that camera off the bear.
While the news station reported that the skater was holding “what appears to be a golf club” us normal humans in the year 2020 know what an action camera on a selfie stick looks like. I’m guessing this was someone’s attempt at reviving the Jackass series by conducting weird ass stunts of their own. Then again, I could probably be convinced that this is just how Steve-O commutes to work these days.
I know I shouldn’t be condoning dangerous actions like this on the freeways of America, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to laughing myself silly while watching this cellphone video of an idiot in a bear head as naked as the day he was born speed skating down the interstate like he’s starring in the 1998 Disney Channel original motion picture Brink! I’ll be laughing about this one for a while, and it’s nice to get a hit of dopamine as this hell year comes to a close. Skate on, naked bear dude. Skate on.
Only in Ohio.