Eastern Lanes

I haven't been bowling in 21 years. I calculated this by the fact that I moved to South Carolina in December 1985 and we had a bowling alley a a couple of blocks from my house. Traci and I used to go there because we were bored and didn't know anyone. I also met my first South Carolina boyfriend, Bill Zamora, there... but that's a whole other Oprah.

Ahhhh, bowling. I sucked in 1685 and I pretty much suck now.

Tina's birthday is next week so she got some friends together and we met up at Eastern Lanes in Middletown. Like a bad hooker motel, Eastern Lanes rents by the hour, which I found to be quite odd. It is by far the worst bowling alley I have ever been in. When we bowled, our balls would disappear and never show up again.... we would wait and watch the little conveyor belt for our ball to come back and sometimes it just never did.

We kept having to call the maintenance people to fix the lane. We would bowl a frame and then the thing that wipes all pins away would get stuck... we would hit reset and nothing would happen. I think half of the time we rented the lane we waited for things to get fixed or for our ball to re-appear!

I found this wonderful lime green ball that was light-weight and had big enough fingers and I kept losing it to the hungry bowling alley monsters. It was very sad when I lost it. I saw that the people next to us were using one just like it so when they weren't looking I swiped it... it took them a long time to notice that I "borrowed" it. One of the maintenance people finally came over to see why we were not getting our balls back and he lifted up a board on the floor and started pulling out all these balls that we had lost - including my original lime green one! The people in the next lane confiscated the one I "borrowed" after mine reappeared.

Eastern Lanes is not only the worst bowling alley I have been in, but it is the greasiest! They really believe in lubing up their lanes! I actually dropped my lovely lime green ball behind me when I was about the bowl. I stepped up the the little dotted line, aimed my ball like the professional that I am, swung my arm back and WHAM! To everyone's amusement, the ball dropped behind me... It was greasy dammit!

One awesome thing about tonight was that I didn't come home smelling like cigarette smoke. I think I like this smoking in public places ban! Normally I would have driven home as fast as I could to tear off my nasty-smokey-smelling clothes but this was the first time I didn't have to and I liked that! I can go to bed without having to take a shower or bath to get rid of the cigarette stench in my hair. Nothing is worse than trying to sleep with the smell of second-hand smoke on your pillow :(

Yay! for smoking bans and boo! for bad bowling alleys!