ArJewTino

Hours before some drunk, hit-and-run douchebag sideswiped me while driving home, some friends and I drove out to Roosh’s hometown White Oak, MD, for some good, ol’ fashioned duckpin bowling. Superfun Disco duckpin bowling, to be exact.

Duckpin bowling, for those wondering, is a 100-year-old game started in Baltimore. The balls are smaller, weigh about 4 lbs., and have no finger holes. The pins are shorter and fatter, and tougher to knock down. For these reasons, breaking 100 is much tougher than in regular bowling and no one has EVER bowled a perfect 300 game.

We got there at 9pm, an hour early, so Baby Bien and I ate a late dinner of greasy fries and a cheeseburger, which tasted oddly like a Wendy’s Super Value Meal. We noticed a lot of teenagers, overdressed and giggly, and it took me back to being 15 when Blue and I would go to Woodlake Bowl in LA and we thought we were the coolest, which we know now was just a delusion.

We goofed around for a bit, and then the eight of us got a couple of lanes and started bowling. The thing about duckpin bowling is that the balls are light. Very light. You’re not going to strain your arm since it’s like tossing a cantaloupe. But you WILL, in all probably, see balls flying through the air as most bowlers forget their own strength.

We tried to keep our duckpin balls in our own lanes, but this was not as easy as you might think. It being Disco night, there were a lot of lights flashing, music blaring, and people dancing. The alley sold $2 Buds, proving what a class establishment it is and solidifying White Oak as the entertainment capital of Maryland (followed, of course, by Scaggsville, based purely on its name). Baby Bien showcased his through-the-legs bowling technique, which no one scoffed at after seeing him hit a strike.

After a couple of games, we decided to take our combined scores and use them to seed us in a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament.

I, of course, was seeded first (with a two-game total of 200), followed by Schneider, GoPats, Baby Bien, Agent J, Sparkplug, J-Vo, and Tits McGee, who was amazingly skilled at finding the gutters. Much like in March Madness, most of the favorites advanced to the second round except for one key upset, with #7 seed J-Vo knocking out #2 seed Schneider by one pin (82-81) in a controversial game marred by accusations of bad math.

I then beat J-Vo in the semifinals with a game-high 125, advancing to the final against GoPats. The Duckpin Bowling Championship of the Universe, however, was postponed since the alley closed at 1pm.

So I highly recommend you try duckpin bowling, at least once. If you like cheap beer, wholesome fun, low-impact exercise, and ridiculously unglamorous evenings, White Oak Bowling Lanes is for you.

Just be careful on the drive home.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17, 2006 at 4:17 PM.