Tuesday is for Bowling

Remember the time I violated several social mores in less than two hours?

Last night I went bowling...as a substitute for an adult, Candlepin bowling league with people from work.  (For you non New England folk:  Candlepin bowling is 10 skinny pins and a tiny ball...not to be confused with big-ball-bowling a.k.a. Duckpin bowling.)

For the last 10 years of my life, any and all bowling has consisted of late nights spent at The Cove (what up Nawaka) drinking drinks and tossing big balls down blacklit, cosmic alleys.  While I haven't been baby ball Candlepin bowling since middle school I thought I would give it a shot.  How hard could it be?

Well.  This was a bowling league.  Sadly, there were no matching polo shirts and K and I were the youngest people by at least 15 years.  To start, there was no automatic scoring system.  I made an older man friend who taught me the finer points of Candlepin scoring.

I also learned that there are A LOT of rules for bowling.  Like don't use the blue balls (because someone brought them from home), don't bowl when the person next to you is bowling, don't step over the line, don't aim for the pins, don't get a frame ahead of your competition, don't throw the ball, take three steps, left leg first, keep your hand flat, ring the bell when you get a strike, knocking pins down with the gutter pins doesn't count, release the ball like you are patting a child's diapered bottom (advice from my old man friend) and don't tell the other teams that you actually bowled 6 balls without knocking down a pin when your scoring sheet only says you bowled three.

The first game I bowled a 44.  Yes.  I bowled 30 balls and knocked down 44 pins.  But I got better!

And despite my overall suckiness, I was invited back...although they said something about a handicap.  Hmm.

Also...do you like how I added 12 + 9 and got 31?  Yes, I teach math to second graders.