crazy delicious

I have joined a bowling league, which is not something I ever thought I'd say but which I did because my friend Glen was being kind of bossy about it and it turns out Glen was right- bowling is fun. This is a law school bowling league (league name: Motion to Strike,) so things are pretty low key because, as you might imagine, your average law student is a below-average bowler. I am ashamed to report that even among law students, I am a below-below-average bowler. I nearly peed my pants with excitement when I broke 100 on our second game last night. This is especially unfortunate because I am married to the son of a professional bowler (no, I'm not joking,) and this son of a pro seems to know things about bowling like "how to throw it straight down the lane" and "how to let go of the ball without wrenching your back in such a way that you'll be sore for days," both things that I'm hoping he'll be able to teach me in future weeks. Apparently, if you're the son of a professional bowler, you have high expectations for yourself and for your team, and you expect yourself to bowl "in the 170s," and despite your best efforts to keep a smile on your face you look a little chagrined each time your wife steps up to the lane and knocks down another 5 pins, bringing her grand total score to 48. But here's the real reason I was inspired to write about something as boring as bowling: I was totally and completely confused by this bowling alley. It was awash in contradiction. For example: it's a bowling alley, so it's a little smarmy and dirty looking (which we were excited about- you know, like a dive bar but with heavy objects being hurled about,) but they were selling blue moon beer in pitchers with orange slices and everything and had a substantial wine list. Or, it's a place you spend hours throwing heavy balls that have been touched by dozens of people, so you get pretty dirty and think with every throw how germy you must be getting (wait, you don't think in your head about how germy things are? You say that's just me? Hm. Well, it must be a carry over from the days when I worked with God's germiest creatures: Fifth Graders.) But then you take a break from the germy lanes for a moment to hit the potty and suddenly you enter: bionic clean bathroom. I'm being totally serious and not at all ironic when I say that this was the cleanest, most technologically advanced bathroom I've ever been in. Not only were the sinks auto-on, but the toilet was auto-flush and the soap was auto-dispense. There were no paper towels, only- you guessed it- an auto-dryer. It was like someone with a serious germ phobia designed the bathrooms while thinking about the germy, bowling ball dirt-encrusted, beer-stained, nacho-coated hands of the people who were going to use this bathroom and decided that bowlers should not be allowed to touch bathroom fixtures ever. Also, there appeared to be kind of a yuppie pickup scene taking place at the bar of this bowling alley, which I suppose is not surprising considering we were one of three sort of yuppie bowling leagues playing there that night. But what was a little surprising was watching the yuppie bowling pickup scene interact with the more traditional bar in a bowling alley pickup scene- I swear, there were mullets involved, and yuppie women in designer jeans with $350 handbags were talking to a man with a long, shady looking ponytail and a Naascar t-shirt. Who knew that bowling could be such a horizon-broadening experience?