AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE BOWLING NEXT TO ME LAST NIGHT.
Dear Un-Mannered Adults,
You appear, at first (second, and then again, third) glance to be relatively educated middle class folks out for a night of irony here at the local bowling alley. How funny! Bowling! Your sidelong glances seeking shared yucks at your “bowling” poses and continued remarks about the fashion faux pas of the requisite footwear long into your eighth frame clearly earmark you as “dippers” (per Madame Luke’s Dictionary, “dipper, n, someone experimenting somewhat self-consciously in a fashion or activity not normally affiliated with”). Let me tell you something, People Bowling Next To Me Last Night, I am not a dipper. I am a bowler. I am not great, but I love to bowl. I know how to score bowling manually, yes, manually, on that long piece of paper with the boxes inside the other boxes, with that little pencil, so when the electricity goes out or the computer system fouls up and everybody panics, fear not, I can keep your score, giving me an inherent value that most other west coast persons-of-my-age don’t have, thank you very much: I, Kim, know Bowling Math! And let me tell you something else that may leave you in a state of fluorescent-lit-two-toned-toed shock and awe: there ARE rules of etiquette at the bowling alley. Rules of etiquette that pre-date your Jimmy Choos chained to the bottom of your table, “Rachael” hair-do’s streaked within an inch of your scalp and Garth Brooks-inspired shirts under NFL loyalty jackets (um…not all on the same bowler unfortunately, as that would actually make for an interesting lane-mate).

I can hear you tittering in disbelief and condescension, but let me tell you another thing. You are lucky you were “dipping” in a little bowling alley along the central coast of California, because if you were pulling that shit anywhere in the Midwest you would have had your asses kicked post haste.

Not that you deserve this, but let me point out a few things just in case you do this again (and just in case you happen to be bowling next to ME again).

1) Every lane has a table. You get to sit at your table. Your drinks, shoes, coats and cell phones get to sit with you. This is why the handy electronic device thingy where you entered your names was at YOUR table, remember? So when other bowlers show up and say, “Hi, we’re bowling at lane 19,” that is a polite way of saying, “hey assholes get your crap off this table,” and that’s when you say, “Oh, sorry, man,” and move your stuff, not when you look up with that just smelled-a-fart look and move HALF of your things and ignore the rest. (Actually this is less of a bowler failure than a human failure.)
2) When you are assigned your lane, pick a ball that fits you in both weight and finger hole size. Stick to this ball. (To those non-bowlers out there, every two lanes share a ball-return, so balls are co-mingled.) (hehe) I suppose it should have been a red flag when the ball return already had ten balls in it and there were only seven of you bowling. We picked three new balls, one of them a precious and hard-to-come-by six pounder for the kids. Boy oh boy! Your kids were so glad! And most of you really preferred the twelve pound large-holed green one I picked for me. HANDS OFF!!! This is so rude. And, by the way, when we finally try to “thin the herd” of the duplicates in your Idiot’s Delight of an array of balls, you’re supposed to make eye contact and answer the question, “Are you using all of these ten pounders?” (Again, maybe just socially stupid…)
3) Only one bowler approaches at a time. This is to give every bowler full concentration with no peripheral distraction. Whoever is standing at the “dots” first goes first. Please, treat it like a stop sign. Look left and right before continuing. If you’re not sure, let the people wearing wrist bands go before you (then again, they are probably the ones paying attention and will most likely be waiting for YOU.)

Bowling is fun. I’m not an elitist. (Or a reverse elitist, and yes I recognize that is an oxymoron.) I believe (humor me here) I am an intelligent, dare I say it, intermittently intellectual non-athletic type. I’ll say it again – I love to bowl. I am not from the Midwest, although I lived there for twelve years. My love for bowling grew with me in California thanks to my grandfather who consistently bowled 320 (a perfect score, for you non-bowlers) and was a pin-setter in the Olden Days. Bowling is challenging. It is social. It can be a team sport or a solo endeavor. It is loud! (I love that part.) I really don’t mind groups of people out for a one-time go at it, re-enacting some kitsch diorama from a fantasy of a simpler life that they think will be a hoot. That’s fine. But please, the jitterbug has rules, the hoola-hoop has rules, even hot dog eating contests have rules. So quit making that stupid face while you let the finger dryer blow up your shirt.

Kim
139, one strike, two spares

P.S. On an ominous note, the PBA (Professional Bowlers Association) was purchased by a group of wealthy Seattle techies including Microsoft executives who plan to make the sport accessible (“extreme”?) by encouraging such behavior as outrageous high-fives, etc. after strikes and making fat bowlers wear black to look more “fit.”

UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA.  I tended to my mending pile last night.  Let me elaborate on that a bit so as to fully relay the magnitude of this paranormal experience.  First, The Mending Pile should be described accurately. It is not an approachable pile on the corner of a dresser, say maybe a skirt with a falling hem section and a couple of shirts with stray buttons.  Nay, ye of naive and dare I say it, amateur aspirations in mending, My Mending Pile is often taller than my youngest child (when it deigns to stand of its own volition – the pile, not the child).  My Mending Pile includes articles of clothing purchased for one member of the family and now, once mended must be passed down immediately one, maybe two notches due to what we call…natural growth and passage of time.  My Mending Pile includes pillow sham covers for pillows that were tossed out because the smell of rancid breast milk could no longer be tolerated by the entire family!  I haven’t breastfed a child in eighteen months!!  So I think you are getting the picture.

Last night I tended to my mending pile.  I went upstairs and fetched my sewing machine and sewing kit.  I tossed each piece that had outlived its usefulness (nobody here requires a snappy-crotch closure anymore as far as I’m concerned, unless somebody is developing a fetish they haven’t clued me in on yet), I pre-pinned each piece to be mended, I pre-picked each spool of matching thread, and here’s where I scared even myself:  I had a matching bobbin for each thread color, which, as it turned out was seven.  I changed the thread and bobbin seven times.  Seven times.  What kind of Martha-fuckin-Stewart moment was I having???  And some of these pieces were coming out of the Singer and going into the laundry.  Go figure.  It must be some sort of strange flu.  Vaccinate me now.

So this morning my daughter got to wear the jeans I bought for her two months ago and needed 5-1/2 inches taken off of.   Ummm…okay, she’s not exactly a rail or anything, but for crying out loud, I didn’t buy them in the Future Super Model section!! They’re a size 7, she’s 6 years old,  and she’s the right height for her age (even a little tall) and only a little roly, so do you you think somebody could figure out that she’s not going to be borrowing shoes from Bootsy Collins!?!?!?!?!  puh-lease.

  ARAFAT.  So now that Arafat has died I suppose it would be in poor taste for me to write my long-planned humour piece announcing that one of his “people” had anonymously leaked information that he is not really ill at all, but secretly leaving the world of politics to chase his lifelong Hollywood aspirations and will make a big-screen debut as Cheech and Chong’s new sidekick “Fatty,” right?

 And it would further put me at risk to make up quotes from Cheech Marin like, “See, it’s really funny, man, ’cause his name’s Arafat, so we call him Fatty, but that’s also a name for, you know, like a fat rolled tasty one, man.  Get it?  It’s like a double nintendo.”  

 So i’m thinking I waited entirely too long to write this and my window of opportunity is now closed.  Oh well, i hope my timing is better with the next terminally ill world figure.

Kim

MADAME LUKE’S DICTIONARY. While this may throw me headlong into the world of “chick-lit,” a territory for which I have neither the patience nor the wardrobe, I must say that I (along with some of my dearest and most easily plagiarized friends) often coin terms too good not to pass on to others, at least in our own megalomaniacal minds, and, after all, it’s my blog and I’ll semanticize if I want to (hey, I think that’s one now). In my defense, not all entries involve fashion (in fact, if you knew me you’d chuckle at my whole obsession with lip gloss. It’s like Phyllis Diller and the cocktail dresses.)

FABULOCITY (n): the speed at which one can go from plain to fabulous. (not to be confused with fabulosity (n): slang for fabulousness) i.e. “With the purchase of her new velvet scarf and similarly hued lip gloss, Jill’s fabulocity increased tenfold.”

Kim

ELECTION DAY, PART I. It is mid-afternoon on Election Day and I have just received my second movie star phone call. Martin Sheen phoned to tell me that President Bush lied (gasp!) so don’t forget to get out and vote. He was kind of impersonal and hung up really quick so I didn’t get to tell him how much I loved him in the 1975 TV movie “Sweet Hostage” with Linda Blair, and that it really cemented my already forming fixation on “bad boys, ” which was furthered the following year in a more age-appropriate manner with Jackie Earl Haley’s portrayal of badass Kelly Leak in “The Bad News Bears” along with his taller, sexier grown-up rock ‘n roll version: Tom Petty. But that Martin Sheen, he was named Martin, and yet he was sexy! How did he DO that!? There was a boy in my class at The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Elementary School (so NOT made up) named Myron, who was sort of as crazy as the guy in “Sweet Hostage,” but in a 10 year old Catholic-y first generation American-Eastern-European immigrant way, I remember thinking, “Well, maybe crazy grows up to be sexy. Martin…Myron…Martin…Myron.” It just didn’t translate.

Our first movie star phone call was, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger since we live in the Golden State. Now, some may consider this a call from a Governor, but I bet my bippy that more people considered it a call from a movie star, which is sad, and I say that as both a voter and an actor. My dh took Ahnold’s call, and I will say it was the first recorded pre-election call he’s ever sat through without cussing and hanging up. He claims he wanted to hear the end of the message (i.e. what organizations paid for it), but I think he may have been mesmerized by star power. I admit that until recently I could never keep Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone straight until one of them opened his mouth. At one point in the late 80’s Sly started wearing glasses. That helped. Now one is the governor of California. That helps even more.

I’m hoping we get a couple more movie star phone calls before the polls close. Do you think Drew Barrymore could call? I always wanted her to call. I know she is the one person who could teach me to knit. And then maybe Vincent Price, who is admittedly and decidedly dead, but I wouldn’t put it past him to call from beyond the grave to really push for stem cell research, make it sound exciting and all Spielberg-y, say “House of the Stem Cell Wax Terror!” (or is Fun With Stem Cells too “positive spin?”)

Okay, off to avoid CNN, MSNBC, FXNWS, etc. for another few hours. As Harry Shearer said on his show last Sunday, let’s start repeating now, “The American people deserve to know who their next President is…before they sit down for Christmas dinner.”

kim