Bowling And So On

sunrise brevard road
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I went bowling last night and I'm sad to report that I'm actually not really in good enough shape for bowling and I probably need to find a more sedate sport, like backgammon or possibly competitive channel surfing - at which, by the way, I excel, even though I do it old skool: wIthout a remote, sucka! They warn you about the dangers of bowling right up front at SkyLanes (which is the bowling alley we favor, due to the fact that it happens to be in West Asheville, which is where we live) but alas, we didn't take this warning seriously enough. Nay, we even mocked the screen on the automated complete with condescending animations scorekeeping thingie when it attempted to tell us that bowling was a risky business. "Yeah, yeah," we said, or, well, I said, "Keep your hands out of the ball return, kids! Or the ball return monster will tear them off!"

It was not the ball return, though, but the hole in the ball that pulled S' thumbnail half off. She finally got a bandaid and perfected thumbless bowling, which was actually kind of humiliating, since, I mean, I had a working thumb and yet I somehow failed to win. It's because I was wounded too: my thumb and my knee and my arm hurt and that's absolutely why I only tied with the the thumbless wonder while her boyfriend G beat the hell out of both of us. And he said he hadn't been bowling since he was 12. Huh.

I like bowling even though, or maybe because, I am unspeakably bad at it. I like the colors of the balls and the bad 70s music and even, or especially, the kinda creepy, smoky little redneck bar tucked into the corner of Skylanes. I like the dippy little animations on the scorekeeping screen that are mean to you when you get a gutter ball and never congratulatory enough when you get a strike (yeah, I did get one. No, wait, two. TWO! I rule!) and I like watching the people, from the guys who are serious about bowling and actually good at it to the small kids who hold their balls with two hands while their parents drink beer and alternately ignore, cheer and berate them. And I love the purple and pink psychedelic carpet. I think maybe if I was actually good at bowling my appreciation for all this ambiance would fade and that's why I'm so careful not to get good.

Mmmm hmm. Or possibly I'm just not coordinated.