Friday 13 July 2012

Challenge #11: Sarah vs Ten Pin Bowling

I have vague memories of a ten pin bowling party I had as a child, but there isn't any photographic evidence to prove this ever happened and I have no idea how old I might have been at the time. What I do know is that I haven't been bowling since this event - which may or may not have even happened - and is probably something I should have done well before turning 29.


What people say

It's worth mentioning here the amazing reaction I get when I say ten pin bowling is on my list of things to do before turning 30: "WHAT?! You've never been bowling?? What have you been doing with your time?"

It's the exact same reaction you get when casually remarking that you haven't seen some classic film.

In my defence I may have been bowling before, but if I haven't, it's because I've been busy trashing my ears for fun at gigs, occasionally stalking bands and working on enhancing my record collection. These things ain't cheap you know.


The Rules

The only rule I'd come up with for the bowling challenge is that I wasn't allowed to have the sides up - I like to call them wings - because I thought that would take all the skill flukiness out of the game. And possibly some of the fun too.



Shoes

Balls


Let's play...

Without any thought for how shit an afternoon it might be if I never hit anything, I insisted we were going to play three games. For some unknown reason I was quietly confident that rolling a ball down a lane would be quite an easy task and that knocking pins over would be do-able. I was being cocky. I was also wrong...


My first shot was a gutter ball. I was gutted.
It's lucky you can't hear what I said at this point,
but to give you a clue it began with an 'f' and ended in an 'off'.

This is Dan looking confident as he goes to take his first shot.

 You can tell that his first shot is right on course.
We're not putting this down to skill, we're putting 
it down to being incredibly spawny.

What I'm thinking: Yay, I finally knocked one over!
I would love to say that this shot was taken shortly after my first gutter ball,
but it wasn't. I did at least four of them before I managed to knock over one pin.
It was a proud moment though and this picture was taken just after
my celebratory dance.

First game score:
Dan 47
Sarah 22

Action shot

Action shot


This is Dan looking smug because he got a strike. 
Or two.

This is me looking pissed off because I didn't get any strikes at all.

Second game score:
Dan 59
Sarah 43

In the last game, Dan's tactics kind of went to shit.
I was delighted.
He was not.


Third game score:
 Dan 66
Sarah 69
I finally won a game!

Dan putting on a brave face.


Thoughts

Ten pin bowling is actually quite a tricky sport to master and what I've learned from the experience is that running and lobbing the ball somewhere in the direction of the pins is not the way to win. Also, having some coordination really helps, but is sadly something I seem to be lacking.

I've also discovered that playing against someone with more bowling experience will only lead to disappointment and name calling, so if at all possible, play against someone who is either shit or a small child.


Verdict: I hit some pins, so that's a win in my book


2 comments:

  1. The place looks empty - did you hire it out exclusively so no-one saw your embarrassing defeats? Oh and doesn't your life feel complete now that you've not only been bowling, but also had the fashionable joy of wearing the sexy bowling shoes :) xx

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  2. Lol, no we didn't need to because my swearing cleared the place really quickly.

    What worries me about the shoes is how many feet had been in them previously. Urgh. x

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