Ice Bowls Part 1

Yesterday Lynn asked me a very tantalizing question. “Do you feel like going bowling today?”

      After twenty plus years without it, I had pretty much lost all contact with the “feeling” of going bowling. I was much more familiar with the feeling that I was having when she posed the question, namely the feeling of reclining on the couch and reading the suddenly appropriate “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

    I resisted the urge to just say no. Other than the total absence of feeling and presence of physical atrophy, I had no reason to reject the idea. So to my surprise, I said “why not” and twenty minutes later, we were off to the bowling alley.

    Back in the day, bowling alleys were everywhere. In the twenty first century there are fewer alley but the ones that survive are rigged up with all kinds of video, electronics, colors and sounds. When I first started bowling it cost $0.35 a game and shoe rental was an extra quarter. Yesterday, the charge was $25 an hour and the shoes were $4.50 a pair.

    $34 bucks would have bought me 100 draft beers back in the day and my couch was still calling so I looked at Lynn and in my best ‘I’m not a cheapskate and I wouldn’t rather be home on my ass reading a book’ tone of voice I said to Lynn, “I don’t know Honey we just spent $50 on lunch a couple of days ago.”

   Lynn did the math in her head and came to the conclusion that the cost was “kinda high for just two bowlers and if we had four bowlers it would be a better deal.”

   I looked over my shoulder and shrugged, indicating that I didn’t see the two other bowlers who would turn this outing into a better deal. Lynn caught my shrug but surprised me by saying “Well, we’re here. Let’s go ahead and do this thing.”

    Of course, I agreed.

    The attendant asked us our shoe size. My shoes turned out to be too big and Lynn’s turned out to be too small. We had to find the balls we were going to use. I asked the attendant when would the clock start running. She said that. “from the time you rent your shoes, we wait eight minutes before we start the clock.”

    I figured that was a fair amount of time to find the right ball, go to the designated alley, put on our shoes and start bowling.

    I wondered how much research had been done to determine how much time was needed for those tasks. If a person brought his own bowling ball and shoes, did he get less than eight minutes to go on the clock ? What if the person only had one leg….did they give him more time…..did they only charge him for one shoe….is it possible for a one legged person to even bowl a game?

    So now I’m on the lookout for the ball that I’m going to use and there are literally a couple hundred from which to choose. Back in the day, there were maybe dozens to choose from and they were all black. Nowadays, they come in all different colors and are arranged according to weight and finger size.

   Back many years ago when I bowled regularly, I owned my own ball and shoes. My ball weighed 14 pounds. Pro bowlers use a sixteen pound ball. I had reached a point in my bowling career that I either went to a 16 pound ball of quit bowling. Ya know that point where you’re pretty good at something and if you spend some more money, spend some more time you could become GOOD at whatever that thing is but you also realize that you don’t have the same aptitude for that thing that those who are BETTER than you have and the time you spend at that thing that you have less aptitude for might be time you’re wasting from something that you for which you have a higher aptitude.

    I didn’t get the sixteen pounder. I quit bowling until yesterday.

So I started looking through the selection of 13 pound balls. I found a yellow ball. The ball was designated XL for finger size. The ball was too large. I checked out another 13 pound yellow ball this one designated as L. This ball was too small. I have the same problem when I'm buying pants. Meanwhile the clock was running.

I tried a couple more balls, again too small and too large. I have the same problem buying pants. I decided that too large is better than too small so with about a minute to spare, I had my ball.

We headed to our alley. Thank God, our shoes were Velcro. I knew right away that mine were too large. So there I was with a ball and shoes that were too big and only a few seconds before we were on the clock.

I picked up my loose yellow ball and was ready to roll.