By going back home to Boston for Thanksgiving break, I was able to spend time with friends and family members who I had not seen since leaving for school in early August. While we shared funny stories from the past few months and stuffed our faces with delicious food, there was one particular experience that had my whole family cracking up.
My family had nearly thirty people at our house for Thanksgiving dinner, and then we regrouped on Friday to have even more fun times with each other. We decided that it would be a great idea to go bowling as a large crowd, and almost everybody attended. We called around lunchtime on Friday to see if a place called “Lucky Strike: Boston” had any open reservations for our group, but unfortunately they did not. Lucky Strike is essentially the Rolls-Royce of bowling alleys in our area, simply because it sits right next to Fenway Park and has an amazing atmosphere. Although we struck out there, we still were determined to find a place to bowl, and ended up heading over to a 24/7 bowling alley in Dorchester, which is a rather seedy part of Boston.
Upon arriving to the rather dingy establishment, we began to play when we realized that we were the only caucasian people in the entire bowling alley. While this was not a problem at all, it just put us in a different environment than we were used to. Two lanes down from us was a group of young men who seemed to be taking their bowling extremely seriously. We watched as they would consistently get strikes and spares, while we continually rolled gutter balls.
Towards the end of our second game, my brothers and I decided to have a competition to see who could roll the ball down the lane the fastest. Unfortunately, my brother got his thumb stuck in one of the bowling ball holes during his turn, and could not release it at the proper time. Instead, the bowling ball ended up sailing over two lanes and rolled down the gutter of another party’s game. It was the group of professionals. One of the intense male bowlers just received a gutter ball during his tenth frame thanks to my brother. Everybody in the entire bowling alley stopped and stared. Then, the young men all started to crack up. Thank goodness!
Everybody started laughing and joking with my brother about his mishap, and luckily the group of guys were not mad at all. They had never seen anything quite like it, and so the laughter continued. At the end of the day, we made new acquaintances during a situation that could have ended up totally different. We laughed hysterically about how out of place we were in the bowling alley, yet still managed to have an amazing time. This story definitely seems to be one where, “You had to be there” in order to fully appreciate the experience, but it is one that I won’t forget anytime soon. With elements of unexpectedness, a cognitive shift definitely occurred, which made things so funny. Even though people were not in play mode, the situation was funny enough to make everyone laugh. Another aspect of the situation could be related to the fact that we felt superior to my brother when he threw the ball.
This is great! It is cool to see that the other bowlers were willing to let it go and have a good time with it. Bowling alleys in my opinion are designed to make people look foolish. There is not a time in my life where I, or any of my friends have ever escaped an alley unscathed. If it makes your brother feel any better, I once went bowling and had the bowling ball fall off my fingers on the back swing... I hit my mother on accident.
ReplyDeleteYeah that was a rough day.