Mind in the gutter, part II

Why hello there, friends. Glad to see you on this Tuesday, replete with the requisite Tuesdaica. When I left you yesterday, I was in the middle of telling you about my bowling league and the events of last Thursday night. If it's ok with you, I'd like to continue with that subject matter. Thank you, I appreciate your support.

As I clearly illustrated with the team names in my last post, the league isn't exactly what you would call "run of the mill." Personally, I don't really call anything that, but hey, you're entitled to your own phrases. What we didn't realize until week one of the league was that people didn't even have to have their real names in the system. That very first week, we bowled against "Dr. Jones," "Daddy," and "Gusuavo" (a great nickname for anyone named Gustavo, I must say) for example. You can imagine that I felt a little plain having "Peter Klein" show up for me when I could literally choose anything instead.

Some folks in the league have the type of nickname I'd expect. One team (Pulled Out Early) has Chief and T-Bone, for example. There's a Big Jon, a Tiny, and G-Money as well. All within the realm of what I consider to be normal nicknames. Then we branch out a little. One team has both Tatas and VaGina together. Another has Rambone and Ass-Ass-N bowling back to back. See what I mean?

Then they just get bizarre. There's someone "named" Phe Phe Pheassco, a young woman named Oshikotikimas, and her teammate, Ohnarhasta. Oh yeah, and someone who goes by Scott Baio as well.

There are two teams whose named I approve of for different reasons. First there's the West Canaan Coyotes, named after the high school football team in the movie, "Varsity Blues." While that's cool to begin with, they followed through and each member is named after one of the characters. Even though we didn't have the most pleasant time bowling against them a few weeks ago, I still admire their work there. The other team is the curiously-named Team Pain. The bowlers there are named She Poured, Us Drinks, To Drunk, and We Drunk'em. I think a lot - too much - about names and things like that, yet the thought never crossed my mind to use four bowlers' names together to form a grammatically incorrect sentence. Nicely done.

It makes me wonder what I would've chosen for my name if I had known that we could do that. When I use to bowl recreationally with friends back in the day, I'd sometimes put my name in as Malcolm. That way, when I got a strike, it said "MALCOLM X" on the machine. I ended up being "MALCOM /" sometimes too, but that didn't work as well. I don't think I'd want that for an entire league though. Well, it's something to consider for next time. For now, our four real (and really Jewish) names all stand out like sore thumbs, but we're used to it now.

Back to last Thursday: We were bowling against Team Pain (the sentence guys), and even though I was bowling like shit, we still had a chance that first game. The tenth frame came down to my homey Rockabye versus We Drunk'em, and they took turns going. We Drunk'em got a strike, a six, and then left one. Rockabye picked up his spare, and looking at the screen, we saw that he needed a strike on this last ball for us to tie. The team on the lane next to us started watching, my parents leaned in with anticipation, and I walked up behind Rockabye ready to congratulate him. He took his steps, had a nice follow through (shaking hands with the head pin, of course), and all ten fell down. It was glorious, and even the other team was high-fiving him for his clutch performance. Greg, Rob, and I were all below our averages for the game and yet we tied due to the heroics of Rockabye.

The next game...eh, not so much. Three of us bowled pretty well, but the other team was on fire. We lost by almost one hundred, meaning we needed to win by that much (plus one) in order to take two and a half of the four games. My parents acknowledged that they were bad luck and were about to leave. "Hold on," I said, "Wait for my strike in the first frame before you go." I walked up, let 'er rip, and the ball did what I asked it to for almost the first time all night. The pins exploded, and I walked back making the face that one makes when he says something cocky and then follows through on it. "Maybe we're not bad luck after all," they said. Then Greg bowled a 6, and they bolted. Greg's next three frames were all strikes, and I texted my dad after each one to illustrate how completely the hex was lifted. As the frames went on though, despite two of us having above-average games, we lost by twenty something and therefore only won half a game for the week. That's gonna hurt in the standings.

Did my parents jinx us? I don't think so. My lovely wife doesn't think things work this way, but I take the blame for not wearing my special bowling boxers. We've lost all four before while I've worn them, but the fates seemed to be especially against us this time. I already washed them for this week, so we should be cool.

I keep trying to think of cool team names for upcoming years in which we can have personal names that match, a la the West Canaan Coyotes. We could be Kiss and fight over who gets to be Gene Simmons. We could be the Durham Bulls and have Crash Davis, Nuke LaLoosh, and two other guys. Hmmm, I have to think more about that. Any suggestions, gentle readers? Here's a suggestion: have a great day. I'll see you back here tomorrow.