all bowlers on deck! from 4.bp.blogspot.com

Is bowling actually a sport? That seemed to be the question of the day within my little bowling group at Moe’s Original Bar B Que, a little joint down Broadway where delicious Southern food is served, live music is played, and pins are bowled. BeeBo, B-Ry, and I (K$) ordered our pulled pork sandwiches, banana puddin’, and plastic pints of Mighty Arrow before lacing up our bowling shoes. (Am I the only one in the world who absolutely loves bowling shoes? Wear them with a sweet little dress? No?)

Choosing a ball usually takes me an embarrassingly long time, and this time was no different. I chose an 8-pounder because it was a fab reddish color and it matched my pants, while the boys chose 11- and 12-pounders. According to helpwithbowling.com, more skilled bowlers will use different weights of balls depending on the shot. The heavier ball is used to go for the strike because it’s got more force behind it, and the lighter ball, which is easier to control, to go for the spare.

At Moe’s on the score screen, after the first shot of each player in each round and in between the creepy dancing girls in the “Disco” theme, there is a handy bowling tool for us neophytes called the Spare Finder. It’ll tell you exactly where to aim on the pins you’ve got left in order to get a spare and spur high fives all around. Beebo apparently didn’t need any dancing girl’s spare-finding advice because he kicked B-Ry’s and my ass just fine by himself. We had a secret champion in our midst, I suppose.

For the second game, our neighboring lanes were filled by what may have been a bowling team, as they all came in with cool leather ball bags and special gloves and their individual fancy footwork on the approach. One fellow had a sweatband on, which instantly answered our question in the affirmative in my book. We stepped up our game and Beebo got even more strikes and spares, I nailed a couple myself, and B-Ry almost broke 75 (the first couple games were a “warm up.”)

The boys decided to make the third game a little more interesting, so they played for the big bucks, five smackaroos. I was sure this game would be my worst because I was a whole two beers in (I’ve got the alcohol tolerance of a 70-pound 12-year-old girl) so I sat out on the betting bit and turned my concentration to my inner Spare Finder. My 8-pounder was almost bouncing through the roof because it was too light, so I switched to a 10 and about ripped my shoulder out of socket. The 9-pounder was the money ball and after we all bowled strikes within the first two frames, the game was on. Maybe it was the pro bowlers in the lanes next to us sending good-at-bowling energies into the air, but we all did shockingly well the last game and there was at least a strike or a spare in every frame. In the end, Beebo dominated, B-Ry owed him five bucks, and I joined the 110 Club.

Our night at Moe’s was done at this point, so we drained our beers, wiped the bowling ball grease off our hands, and did sick parkour all the way back to the car. And I woke up this morning with a sore right arm. Great success!