I dropped W10,000 on a rare purchase for my game room yesterday.
I bought a bowling alley.
Yes, you really can bowl on it; it's not simply a decoration. Previously I had only used the bowling alley at the Tournament Arena and I really needed something to practice on.
Bowling alleys bring back all sorts of warm fuzzy memories to me, although what I purchased is the classic ten-pin bowling type, and my memories have to do with duckpin bowling. My parents bowled in a Sunday couples league all during my schooldays (all the teams were named after mixed drinks; I still get nostalgic when "Grasshoppers" are mentioned) and Dad also bowled in a summer league. After he retired, at least one day a week he would go down to Legion Bowladrome on Park Avenue and keep score for the retired men's leagues that bowled on weekday afternoons; if someone didn't show up he sometimes bowled as a substitute. (After Mom retired, she told him she married him for better or for worse—but not for lunch.)
I wasn't much of a bowler, even when I bowled with Jeannie and Don, two other kids who accompanied their parents to the Sunday night league, and used to spend most of my time at the table behind the alley area writing stories. If I was really bored I might go into the ladies' room and act out a story when the place was empty. I watched almost all of the first run of Get Smart on the television that was in back of the checkout counter/shoe rental counter. It was very hard for me to ask the clerks behind the counter to change the channel, because I was so shy, but all of them were friends of my dad and they usually did as I asked, unless there was a hotly contested Providence College Friars basketball game on. I still hate basketball! :-)
The one thing I have noticed about the personal bowling alley vs. the one in the Tournament Arena is that the latter seems to have more "action" in its ball (if a ball in a virtual Shockwave program can be said to have action!). I can get more strikes and spares playing in a tournament than I can back in my game room.
Maybe that's a good thing because I need all the help I can get. :-)
Roll, Webkinz, Roll!
