Bringing Down the House

Ever wish you could take back one of those nights of bowling and just forget it ever happened?  Whether you rolled an embarrassingly low score or maybe you had a few too many to drink and talked too much trash to the guy on the next lane, we all have those stories that just make us want to cringe when it’s rehashed in any way.

My buddy (Bill) and I were hitting the lanes one Saturday night with a few other people hanging out with us, some bowling with us, others just kind of sitting around to get out of the house and what have you.  Our close circle of friends always liked to talk as much trash as possible while we were out, especially when my buddy was having an already low scoring game.  We liked to get him riled up just because he is not one to hide his frustrations over his less-than-stellar outings.

First off, Bill is a straight roller…no curve whatsoever, and on his good nights, he can sometimes end up just throwing stones, but it works for him and he always has fun.  On one particular outing, he wasn’t doing so well and was getting visible angry at himself for throwing junk all night.  We, of course, were ribbing him every chance we could get and it was obvious that we were getting to him more and more.

His turn came up on the line and just by the way he picked up his ball, I knew this wasn’t going to be a very pretty delivery whatsoever.  If he could have used runner’s blocks to get off the line, he would have…as he fired the ball down the lane, it actually looked good!  It was straight and true, no revolution whatsoever and was heading directly between the 1-3 pocket.  As the ball struck the pins, we didn’t hear the familiar and expected sound of the pins exploding all over the kickbacks, rather, we heard a bit of a *thunk*, immediately followed by a large crash, and glass sprinkling down from the cage area.

Bill had thrown the ball so hard, that it has somehow bounced up upon impact and took out the entire pin-setting system and shattered the light next to the pinsetter.  I could only describe the motion of the rake attempting to clear the fallen pins as a tired and beaten Terminator cyborg dragging itself along.  We simply sat there in shock, wondering 1) how the hell that happened, and 2) are we going to have to pay for it!

They moved us to the next lane over and let us finish out the night, but to this day, when Bill starts to get upset, we ask him to calm down and not destroy the house again as we like going there too much to see it in ruins.

What stories do you that will never cease to haunt your days in the alley?