Bowling for Baby Obie

Dear BFFs (until someone better comes along),

This past weekend, I went bowling. It’s sort of a little out of character for me to participate in any sport that requires using communal equipment since I’m interested in good hygiene, particularly my own. But when anyone asks me to do something on a Saturday night, I’m more often than not game. Beats sitting in a dark living room on a tapestry couch that smells like wet dog crying my eyeballs out about the fact that I have no friends while the Ween (aforementioned dog) likes the tears from my cheeks. Anyway, so hell yeah I was game for bowling. Plus, I haven’t won at anything in a while and I figured, when I assessed the crew I was going bowling with, that I could surely come home victorious, even if I didn’t stick my fingers in a bowling ball all night long.

My friends, the Idea Fairy and her lady love, the Bombmaker, were supposed to pick me up (we were car pooling! Take that, Bill friggin McKibben!). Which they did, when I was in the shower. Because I was bathing, I didn’t here my phone ring alerting me to the fact that they were at my door. Not getting any response from their phone calls or knocks, they pair assumed the worst. They threw a T-bone to the Ween and entered the house. They thought I was lying in a pool of my own vomit (or pee, as the Bombmaker worried). I actually was trying to find some appropriate underwear that wouldn’t ride up as I hurled the bowling ball down the lane. The long of the short of this little saga is that I was not dead and I went to the bowling alley sans knickers. I’m pretty sure that’s what ruined my game.

But this is not a tale of underoos. No, ma’am. This is a tale of an attempted pick-up gone catastrophically awry. And I’m not talking about my friends picking me up to car pool. (You hear that, Al bleeding Gore? We were being good citizens of the EARTH!) I’m talking about the kind of pick-up where someone with rank breath wearing a leather jacket and pleated pants says something to the effect of  “You must be tired cuz you’ve been running through my mind all night.” Then he/she proceeds to grind up on you, occasionally dribbling his/her Full Throttle and Bacardi mixer down your back. Not that I’m speaking from experience. The only time I get picked up is when I slip in beer and go ass over teakettle on the dance floor and my friends have to help me up.

This is what bowling looks like. (This is not me.)
FYI- The Idea Fairy and the Bombmaker have taken to calling me Baby Obie. Despite my being significantly older (and taller, might I add), they say I’m like their baby because I eat all of their food and poop all over their house. Hence the title of this post.

I shan’t keep you in suspense any longer. So here’s what happened. A girl who was bowling with us- a friend of a friend- began the evening by suggesting, nay demanding, we be friends. “Uh, ok,” I said, treading the fine line between being a non-committal whittle and my totally flipping rude self. “How do we do that?” I asked. “You give me your number,” she said. Abort mission, abort mission! I wanted to let her know that I was all stocked up on friends and didn’t need anymore, but luckily it was my turn to bowl. Saved by germ-filled urethane!

Throughout the evening, said girl- I’ll call her Flick for her whiplash-inducing hair flicks- kept slapping me five, even on my most disastrous bowls. I could roll it right down the gutter on purpose and she’d give me a “Nice one!” and put her hand up for a slap. I was certain she’d get all locker room on my ass and snap me with a towel. A little later in the evening, Flick sat down next to me and inquired as to my provenance. Now, anytime anyone asks this, they better be prepared for the answer. I’m from Pittsburgh, home of yinzers, pierogies and the Pittsburgh left turn, and I can’t hide my pride. So when Flick screwed up her face and let out an “Ugh” when I said Pittsburgh, I nearly walked out of the bowling alley. Now if you’re trying to get in someone’s pants, or even just trying to make a new friend to go to the movies or the mall with, you probably shouldn’t start by insulting their hometown. Unless it’s Camden, Newark, Trenton or pretty much anywhere else in New Jersey, in which case, insult away.

This is what Pittsburgh looks like.

This is also what Pittsburgh looks like.

Here’s another thing you don’t do if you’re trying to pick someone up – you don’t insult the work they do or their place of employment. Flick managed to offend on the latter count. Here’s how the convo went down verbatim. Flick: “So you went to Syracuse for grad school, huh?” Me: “Yep.” Flick: “So that’s a pretty good school for journalism, right?” Me: “Uh, I guess so.” Flick: “So like what are you doing at the Free Press?” Me “….” It really wasn’t even worth my energy to validate or dignify that with a response. So I just bowled. And bowled. And while I bowled I plotted how I might “accidentally” let go of the 12-lb. bowling ball right into her face while she was in mid hair-flick.

There are two more essential rules to follow if you want to get in my skivvies, assuming I’m wearing any: don’t ask me my Zodiac sign and don’t correct my grammar. Flick scored a super two-fer on this one. As I was poised to release the ball for what was certain to be a strike, Flick asked me when my birthday was. I told her and she asked if that made me an Aries. No, I said. It makes me a Taurus (yes, my birthday is coming up soon. Monetary gifts are greatly appreciated). Then I mentioned that all my friends, including my “special friend,” are Tauruses. “Taurean, you mean,” Flick said. Uh, no, I meant that they were Tauruses, which is the generally accepted plural form of Taurus, or Taurii if we’re getting etymologically fancy. If I wanted to use an adjective instead of a plural noun, I would have flipping used it.

This is what a Taurus looks like.

I left the bowling alley sketched out by Flick’s aggressiveness and feeling bitter about the fact that I lost big-styley to someone who I thought would be barely able to hold a bowling ball, let alone sail it down the lane for strike after strike. My prissy-pants instincts are right- bowling is always a bad idea.