Bowling? Yes, bowling!

About thirty years ago, I took Gabe bowling for his birthday, along with a couple of his friends.  They didn't know how to bowl, of course, being 7 or 8 years old, but it was fun.  I think that was the last time I went bowling, until last Wednesday night.  Needless to say, I was a bit rusty.  Gutter balls?  Yep, more than a few.  But I had a couple of spares and one strike, so it wasn't total humiliation.

I am not usually a fan of getting together with the people I work with after work hours.  There aren't usually connections worth savoring and my off-hours are mine, not to be shared with co-workers.  But fates conspired and this bowling evening was set up and six of us met to bowl, two others to watch. Bottom line, it was a blast!  We barely talked about work, a good thing.  We discovered that one of us (the blond with the bad back) was a cracker-jack bowler, at one point getting 4 strikes in a row.  We all had different styles of bowling, from commando-attack style to ballerina-style (from the youngest of the guys.)  Most of us just tried to get the ball down the lane without bouncing it or without falling down or making an ass out of ourselves on every frame.

The first game, I came in second.  Second to last, that is.  The next game I came in last.  Did I care?  Absolutely not, not one tiny bit.  Oh sure, it would have been miraculous to have bowled double my score but I was there for the fun, not the win.  The eight of us laughed for almost three hours, sipping on good beer, picking the pepperoni off of mediocre pizza, cheering for strikes and spares, commiserating over gutter balls. Conversation blew through many topics: television and  movies we loved and hated, books we were reading, politics, restaurants we recently visited, stories from our past, thoughts of the future.

Alas, it was a school night and we all had to get up early the next morning and work so we headed home a bit after 9:00.  Everyone concurred: we'll do something else together again.  (Some were promoting miniature golf as the next outing but since I hate that game, I am pushing for a game of pool, or even more bowling.)  Co-workers or not, sometimes you just need to get out of the sandbox and take a ride on the slide.  

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