UAVL

My best friend from school went on to do extremely well for himself. He has a fantastic home out in the country, and he has me over from time to time. In school we always were very competitive, and loved trying to beat each other at games. He loved games so much, that he actually turned his whole basement into one big game room. He had everything, darts, pool, foosball, air hockey, ping pong, a chess table, a four lane bowling alley, and lots of others. It was a great place to hang out.

I had gone into the construction trade, and was often looking for work or between jobs. So our wager was only twenty bucks. But it was more about the competition than the money. We decided on a best out of three games tournament. Winner takes the twenty, and owns the title of champion of that alley. It was done in a fun and hearty spirit.

He flipped all the necessary switches to give power to the alley. We went to the ball rack and picked the one we wanted. We even donned the old bowling shoes, he had every size you could need, because he often through big parties and they would inevitably end up in the game room. It had a full bar as well. On my second roll my ball took an unnatural skip. It was very slight, but still noticeable. I politely said excuse me, and strolled out to my car.

In a few moments, I was back with a dyson vacuum dc17 that I was to deliver to my mother from my sister. I plugged the thing in and went to town on the lanes, all the while cracking my friend up with snooty remarks about his housekeeping. He had tears in his eyes by the time I was through. I laughed pretty hard at myself.

After another couple of bad frames, I excused myself again. Back to the car I went, this time for something all competitors must have, a good luck charm. When I re-entered the room, my friend fell out on the floor laughing. I had on my black helmet that I bought for riding my motorcycle. I had won some races with that bike, and considered this helmet to be a good luck charm because of it.

Some more frames were unforgiving, as I saw myself being smeared beyond recovery. It was then that I noticed my shoes were really slippery. Out to the car I went. I came back in, sporting my new brown boots that I had bought to deer hunt in. My friend thought I looked ridiculous and had to get a picture before we resumed.

From that frame on things began to turn around. By the end of the tournament, I shook his hand, took my twenty, and headed out to my car with a big smile. I had learned that bowling can really be fun, if you have the freedom to put all you have into it, literally.

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