Okay, look. I’ve got this question to ask, and I’m almost embarrassed to ask it . . .

But here goes anyway:

Bowling. Is it an old person sort of thing?

I mean, do you think it’s in the same category as Mah Jong, or shuffle board or Bingo?

I mean, you don’t have to be old or living back in the fifties or anything to enjoy it, do you?

I only ask because, in my, I guess, rather snobbish slant on things, I’ve always considered the sport to be…well…kind of beneath me.

But Mary Ellen and I live in a 55+ community here in Florida, and there’s a bowling league here, and they needed some folks to act as substitutes this week, and so, well, Mary Ellen and I kind of volunteered.

I mean, that’s okay, right?

I don’t have to give up my membership in the cool, bohemian writer/artist club that I belong to back in Connecticut, right?

I can still drink micro-brewed beer if I bowl, right? I don’t have to just drink Bud and Bud Light, right?

I mean, because Mary Ellen and I went bowling just to practice yesterday in order to play better for the real McCoy tomorrow when we are substituting, well…it doesn’t mean anything, right?

And even if we really had a lot of fun doing it, it’s still okay, huh?

Okay, good!  Now that all of that is behind us and settled, I can admit that, if the truth be known, I was pretty much an aficionado of the sport of bowling in my youth.  I hadn’t been inside a bowling alley for probably thirty years, and when I stepped inside of this one today, I was amazed at how much things have changed in the sport, but bowling is like riding a bicycle; one you get the hang of it, you never forget.

Because I was in an actual bowling league back when I was ten, I felt that it was my duty to impart my infinite knowledge of the sport to the newbie, Mary Ellen.

We had to rent the shoes, just like in the olden days, and those shoes were ugly – red and green stripes -  but they fit well.

Then the guy told us that we were on Alley 8. I looked down the alleys and found Alley 8 about a quarter of a mile away. Not finding a bus station anywhere, Mary Ellen and I set out on foot.

Now, we were in a bowling facility that is known as a “Ten Pin Bowling Alley.” That means big balls that you stick your fingers into.

In a “Duckpin Bowling Alley” the balls and the pins are smaller, and you throw three balls rather than just two.

A third kind of alley is a “Candle Pin Bowling Alley”, where the balls are small and the pins look like thick, straight dowels. Also, with Candle Pins, they don’t clear the dead wood between your throws.  For you lay people out there, “Dead Wood” is bowling talk for “pins that are knocked down.”(Stick with me.  I know the ropes here, and I’ll teach you all you need to know about bowling. Trust me.)

When we got to our designated alley, we went through the process of picking out a ball for each of us.  This is no easy process because getting just the right ball that suits you is of the utmost importance! You have to decide what weight you want. They range all the way from six ounces up to sixteen. Weight is important because if you pick one that too heavy for you, you’ll end up pulling your freaking arm out of its socket and paying a visit in the nearest emergency room.  If you pick one that is too light, you’ll end up rocketing the thing down the alley like it was shot out of a cannon and blasting a hole through back wall of the building …and that could be costly.

After you settle on a weight of the ball, you need to consider the finger holes.  There are two things to look at here:

1.       How far apart the holes are drilled, and

2.       How wide the holes are.

If the holes are drilled too far apart, you’ll never get your fingers into the ball properly, and God forbid you should trouble fingering all the holes!

If they are too close together, you’ll end up pinching your fingers together and getting cramps.

If the holes are drilled too wide for your fingers, you could end up not gripping the ball properly, and, on your backswing, you could inadvertently release the thing and end up flattening a whole swath of bystanders who are behind you.

If the holes are drilled too narrow, you could end up getting your fingers stuck in the damned things and:

1.       End up ripping your fingers off of your hand when you go to throw the ball, or

2.       Having the ball stick to your hand like cement when you go to throw it, and, instead of the ball going down the alley by itself, the ball and you go careening down the freaking alley at break-neck speed, destined for a collision with ten large, heavy chunks of wood.

So, after I spent about fifteen minutes picking out the perfect ball for my hand, Mary Ellen went over and picked out the prettiest one to use for herself.

After you choose the correct ball, the next step in your bowling experience is to figure out how in the hell to use the new, computerized scoring displays with which the modern alleys are equipped.

No longer are the stubby, little, red, chicken-leg pencils needed, nor are the one-yard by one-yard scoring papers, on which, back in the day, you had to use your arithmetic skills to figure out what score to put down for Tammy in the seventh frame when she was coming off of two strikes followed by a spare and six.

Now, all you need do is ask the fellow in lane next to you how in the good Christ you turn the stupid computer on.  Then, after two or three tries, you’re pretty much good to go! The computer does all the arithmetic for you, and it projects your paltry score up on the overhead screens for the whole freaking world to see that you just threw a string of gutter balls. It even tells you when it’s your turn to bowl.

And it NNNEEEVVVEEERRR makes a mistake. So, unlike in days of yore when you could blame your teammate’s rotten math skills for your pathetic score, the computer takes away that perk and lets the whole damned place see that you can’t bowl worth a tinker’s dam.

When it’s your turn, and you approach the line with ball in hand to bowl, remember that there is foul line that you should not cross.  If you do manage to step across it, you will be penalized, and the number of pins you knocked down with that throw will not be counted.

In the wonderful days of yesteryear, if you crossed the line, a buzzer would sound, to alert the scorer of your foul so that the ball would not be counted.

In modern times, the computer just KNOWS that you screwed up, and automatically discounts the throw. However, these days, there is an extra added bonus that goes along with stepping over the foul line.

The new waxes that they put down on the alleys between the foul line and the pins are ultra slick. So, if you step over the line, there is no way on God’s green earth that you will be able to keep your feet under you. And when you crash down on your backside and let out a groan and hearty and heart-felt blaspheme or two, that’s not the end of it. You then slide down the alley for a good ten feet or so with your wife laughing hysterically behind you. AAAANNNNDDDD when you finally get to your feet again, you immediately plummet back down onto the hardwood, and you continue to do so, looking like Bambi on ice and making a complete spectacle of yourself, until you FINALLY realize that the fucking gutters that border the alley are the only surfaces in the vicinity that are not slathered with the goddamned wax, and they are the only places where you can get to your feet and walk back safely to the other side of the foul line in order to smack the living hell out your wife, who, by this time, has pretty much lost all control of most bodily functions because she is helplessly dissolved into wild gales of laughter. 

When you throw your next ball, you may realize that ground is a lot further away than it was when you were younger, and, in order to place the ball quietly down on the alley, you seem to need to bend over considerably further than you did when you were young and spry.

If you fail to do this, you run the risk of the ball being released from your hand three feet above the alley, crashing to the hardwood below with a deafening smack, bouncing across three other lanes and bowling a strike in Alley 11 when you are standing there in Alley 8 sheepishly waving at the dumbfounded bowler in Alley 11 who was just getting ready to throw.

Finally, never, never, NEVER, try to stop a ball that is being mechanically spit up into the ball return rack by placing your hand between it and the other balls that have come to rest in the rack! If you do this, you run the risk of having your hand smashed to the width of your average tortilla while you jump around the alley, bleeding like a stuck pig, waving your now purple hand around like an Amazonian witch doctor, and screaming out expletives at the top of your lungs that would make Satan himself blush.

When your string of games is complete, compliment your teammates and congratulate your opponents for a game well played, return your ball to holding rack and your shoes to the front desk, and then go home and resign yourself to the fact that, from now on, the only bowling you’re ever going to play is on your Wii console, which is much, much, MUCH safer and tons less humiliating.