Bowling was my PE in college, and I was pitiful. The instructor, who I called “coach”, gave me lots of extra attention, detailed instruction, positive feedback, repeated many things, but I never improved.
it’s never been a favorite past time of his, but aki likes it when they go at three in the morning with some half-drunk friends and nearly crash the place, all greasy-pizza and roughed-up shoes in the neon light.
the sound of all the pins tumble to the ground as the bowling ball strikes again. the cheers in the background just confirmed the win that was just made.
halfbright
The Dude looked at me, his gaze between glazed with marijuana or just bored. “It’s your turn, man.” I picked the heavy wall and trudged towards the alley. From behind he shouted “Try not to suck this time!” I was a strike away from evening the score, five games away from the end. I closed my eyes, visualizing victory. A swing later, the ball knocked pin number 10 sending the other nine tumbling down. I let him have my best smug smile as I sat down and waited for his turn.
Onix
Dark-soled, squeaky, used. I try not to think of where they have been before they’ve touched my feet. Bowling alley shoes are questionable at best.
Bowling is such an odd sport, isn’t it? I’m terrible at it. It’s taken me years to be able to bowl a game and not have a gutter ball in every frame. I have never had a game without at least half a dozen of them. I remember watching it on TV as a kid and thinking it was a way for adults to throw things and get away with it.
It all came down to this. The last moment. He had no idea that she would take this path, or that it would lead her here. But now that they were at this point, there was no turning back.
She stared down the lane with wary eyes, tilting her head back and forth as though that would change the path of the ball. She watched with anxious excitement as it made contact at the end of the lane, watched the domino effect as the first touch caused a chain reaction. Finally she looked back to him, grinning.
Bowling is a fun activity that I’m never particularly consistent at. For example, the last time I went bowling, I started off my first game with three gutter balls. I ended my third game with three strikes. (Well, two strikes and a spare, but the story is better if I say it was three strikes.)
Drew
Rolling down lanes
we glide on planes
freak shows
are
weak shows
in this bundled wrongness
hudled near the three hole
punch
My dad loves the game
One more strike. One more strike and I’ll win one thousand bucks. Just one more strike.
His thoughts swam with those words over and over again. All his life he had gambled, hoping to win big. Now, he just needed this cash so that he can feed his family for the next month. One more strike.
He sent the bowling ball down the alley and prayed.
Celine Wu
Bowling was once my grandmother’s passion. Every God given Friday night she and her husband would head out to their local bowling alley for a grand time. My grandmother cherished the times she spent bowling like no other.
Bowling. Gutter balls and strikes, smooth soled shoes and chalk dust. Beer and nachos. Failure and glory. Keenly watching the ball as it careens down the alley, desperately willing it out of the gutter and into strike position.
Heather
Down goes the pins. Every last one. I guess we won. The war is over. One last pin wobbles and tips over. GG, good game everyone.
three holes, slam of the ball on the wood. each time i wonder is there a dent, why would there be wood if wood would dent? the rubber of the machine that gags up the ball. pick the light ones, the light ones for you. the heavy ball will pull your muscles, tweak your arm.
We rolled down the hill, our laughter taking over for the cheesy sound effects I’d first attempted.
Ann
The pins knock over. Not all of them. Two remain, in the most inconvenient spot possible. He knows no possible roll will knock them both over. not at his level of skill, anyway. He turns to look at her and shrugs. She smiles and shakes her head. she gets it too. So he can’t impress her at knocking down some pins with a ball, but somehow, for some reason, she’s still there, and she seems to be perfectly okay with the moment.
He had a head resembling a bowling ball. So I tried to put my fingers in his head and he bit one off. it hurt
Kevin
Bowling inside a bowl is much bigger a challenge than one usually thinks. Well, not really. You are inside a bowl and you see pins at the top, you have to reach them with your ball, doesn’t that look terribly hard? Well it is. So bad that bowl bowling isn’t as popular as to even exist.
jirafa
i’m not very good at it, but i enjoy it all the same. It’s much better now that I’m old enough to drink at the bowling alley. i went glow in the dakr bowling once, it was fun. i think bowling shoes are actually kind of comfy.
savannah
“Wanna go bowling tonight?”
“No, thanks,” Sally grumbled. “Right hand’s acting up again. I think it’s tendonitis.”
“Not carpal tunnel syndrome?”
“No. I already asked my doctor that. She just thinks I tugged on my wrist a little too much when I was weeding last week.”
Wally sighed. “I just don’t get how you persistently try to take care of that damn apartment garden. It’s always going to look lousy.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
Belinda Roddie
Sitting in the hard plastic seat, arms folded, practically glaring at all of the people down the lanes rolling their bowling balls and knocking down the pins. With a disgruntled sigh, I reiterated over and over in my head… I hate bowling.
I was never much of a fan for bowling, what with my shoddy aiming skills and my ability to actually throw (roll?) the ball right. So I have only been able to make a few points in the games that I’ve played so far.
Brenda
Something I fail at. Embarassing for me to play, my brother always wins. I kind of fail at life. Bowling is a game filled of disappointments for me.
Shae
I turn towards the lane and look ahead. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that, somehow, this is normal. I’m supposed to just bowl. Like I’ve done it before.Like it matters that for the first time in my life I’ve been taken out bowling. I don’t tell Jeff or Anne that I’ve never done it before. It’s something every kid knows how to do. Other families I’ve stayed with never bothered to take me so I suppose that it would be okay to just tell them that I don’t know how but I can’t. I just want to fit in here. I just want to belong.
She threw the ball, sweat dripping from her brow, her tongue sticking out of her lips in concentration.
“Steeeeee-rike!” her brother called from behind her, giggling as she danced around.
I wiped my hands on the old rag and threw it back on the chair. I walked over to the table and picked up a dark blue bowling ball. I went the start line and took 3 steps back. The ball, waiting right below my nose. I swung my arm back and skipped to the front and let it rip.
Ah all the times I’ve went bowling before were super fun. Good memories. I still remember the cello bros one when I got a huge sundae at Dairy Queen with Jigo afterwards, and the V7 one was pretty hilarious too.
A lot of fun. Took me a long time to learn how to bowl properly, but my best score is around a 180 now. Always loved to go bowling, it’s fun, and competitive, but not insane. Haven’t been in a long time, but would love to go again sometime soon, maybe with Justin and Panda, or Jake and Joey.
Kat
I walked out of the bowling alley, I was done trying to have a good time. Soon I began running as if running for my life. I was done. I went home and cried. I was done being the last option to you when she was around. I was done with you loving her but only liking me, and when she was around I was nothing to you. This is the last I’m asking you this. Put my name at the TOP of your list,
Shoot straight, but don’t aim high. Oh goodness, please don’t aim high. Whenever someone aims high while bowling, they make themselves a giant fool. Just be smooth about your throw, and you’ll be rewarded with smug satisfaction.
He laughed and ran and hugged me, bowling me over, grinning with his arms wrapped around me and his laugh shimmered and shook in the air like a school of fish startled into beauty.
That night we went bowling. I was nervous, and I locked myself in the bathroom. He was confident, and when I came out, we played twenty questions, which turned into forty questions, and fifty, until soon we felt we knew everything about each other. He tried to buy me pizza and soda, and I refused, so we went Dutch. He kissed me on the cheek. I cried.
use a ball to knock down pins.. whoever knocks down the most pins after 10 rounds wins with the highest score. there are bumpers you could use if you suck.. usually kids use them so it doesnt go in the side pit. I honestly dont like this sport.. i think its stupid to thrown balls at pins but some people love it and are even on bowling teams.
esther
Bowling for life. The best game I had there was a turkey. Gobble Gobble Bitch! Nah I didn’t say that. I said “I bowled a terkee!” Like the dork that I am.
dirtychai
I tried my hardest to roll the ball but the effort was useless. It went 10 feet ahead and fell straight into the gutter. “Great job” she muttered under her breath. She could already hear the catcalls from behind her.
Carol
She tried to make a strike but failed, landing miserably on her butt. Zac got up to help her, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. The sound of a crash resounded in their ears as they turned towards the pins. She had only knocked down one. “Great Job Zoe.” she muttered under her breath. She had just totally embarrassed herself in front of her date.
Carol
whenever people get really bored, like extremely bored beyond tears, then they will ask their friends if they want to go bowling. Ok whatever, its bowling you’ll have fun. So they go bowling, and they have a pretty good time, other than eating crappy pizza, wearing crappy shoes, and smelling a bunch of gross smells
Bowling was my PE in college, and I was pitiful. The instructor, who I called “coach”, gave me lots of extra attention, detailed instruction, positive feedback, repeated many things, but I never improved.
it’s never been a favorite past time of his, but aki likes it when they go at three in the morning with some half-drunk friends and nearly crash the place, all greasy-pizza and roughed-up shoes in the neon light.
the sound of all the pins tumble to the ground as the bowling ball strikes again. the cheers in the background just confirmed the win that was just made.
The Dude looked at me, his gaze between glazed with marijuana or just bored. “It’s your turn, man.” I picked the heavy wall and trudged towards the alley. From behind he shouted “Try not to suck this time!” I was a strike away from evening the score, five games away from the end. I closed my eyes, visualizing victory. A swing later, the ball knocked pin number 10 sending the other nine tumbling down. I let him have my best smug smile as I sat down and waited for his turn.
Dark-soled, squeaky, used. I try not to think of where they have been before they’ve touched my feet. Bowling alley shoes are questionable at best.
Bowling is such an odd sport, isn’t it? I’m terrible at it. It’s taken me years to be able to bowl a game and not have a gutter ball in every frame. I have never had a game without at least half a dozen of them. I remember watching it on TV as a kid and thinking it was a way for adults to throw things and get away with it.
It all came down to this. The last moment. He had no idea that she would take this path, or that it would lead her here. But now that they were at this point, there was no turning back.
She stared down the lane with wary eyes, tilting her head back and forth as though that would change the path of the ball. She watched with anxious excitement as it made contact at the end of the lane, watched the domino effect as the first touch caused a chain reaction. Finally she looked back to him, grinning.
“Strike!”
Bowling is a fun activity that I’m never particularly consistent at. For example, the last time I went bowling, I started off my first game with three gutter balls. I ended my third game with three strikes. (Well, two strikes and a spare, but the story is better if I say it was three strikes.)
Rolling down lanes
we glide on planes
freak shows
are
weak shows
in this bundled wrongness
hudled near the three hole
punch
My dad loves the game
One more strike. One more strike and I’ll win one thousand bucks. Just one more strike.
His thoughts swam with those words over and over again. All his life he had gambled, hoping to win big. Now, he just needed this cash so that he can feed his family for the next month. One more strike.
He sent the bowling ball down the alley and prayed.
Bowling was once my grandmother’s passion. Every God given Friday night she and her husband would head out to their local bowling alley for a grand time. My grandmother cherished the times she spent bowling like no other.
Bowling. Gutter balls and strikes, smooth soled shoes and chalk dust. Beer and nachos. Failure and glory. Keenly watching the ball as it careens down the alley, desperately willing it out of the gutter and into strike position.
Down goes the pins. Every last one. I guess we won. The war is over. One last pin wobbles and tips over. GG, good game everyone.
three holes, slam of the ball on the wood. each time i wonder is there a dent, why would there be wood if wood would dent? the rubber of the machine that gags up the ball. pick the light ones, the light ones for you. the heavy ball will pull your muscles, tweak your arm.
Shiney wooden passageways leading to that final strike., squeaking shoes, bright lights. Loud voices, beer breath and stale cigarette smoke,…Bowling
Gnilwob was a master bowler and because of this he ruled the world! Every time people tried to go on strike, he gave them a strike of his own!
We rolled down the hill, our laughter taking over for the cheesy sound effects I’d first attempted.
The pins knock over. Not all of them. Two remain, in the most inconvenient spot possible. He knows no possible roll will knock them both over. not at his level of skill, anyway. He turns to look at her and shrugs. She smiles and shakes her head. she gets it too. So he can’t impress her at knocking down some pins with a ball, but somehow, for some reason, she’s still there, and she seems to be perfectly okay with the moment.
He had a head resembling a bowling ball. So I tried to put my fingers in his head and he bit one off. it hurt
Bowling inside a bowl is much bigger a challenge than one usually thinks. Well, not really. You are inside a bowl and you see pins at the top, you have to reach them with your ball, doesn’t that look terribly hard? Well it is. So bad that bowl bowling isn’t as popular as to even exist.
i’m not very good at it, but i enjoy it all the same. It’s much better now that I’m old enough to drink at the bowling alley. i went glow in the dakr bowling once, it was fun. i think bowling shoes are actually kind of comfy.
“Wanna go bowling tonight?”
“No, thanks,” Sally grumbled. “Right hand’s acting up again. I think it’s tendonitis.”
“Not carpal tunnel syndrome?”
“No. I already asked my doctor that. She just thinks I tugged on my wrist a little too much when I was weeding last week.”
Wally sighed. “I just don’t get how you persistently try to take care of that damn apartment garden. It’s always going to look lousy.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
Sitting in the hard plastic seat, arms folded, practically glaring at all of the people down the lanes rolling their bowling balls and knocking down the pins. With a disgruntled sigh, I reiterated over and over in my head… I hate bowling.
I was never much of a fan for bowling, what with my shoddy aiming skills and my ability to actually throw (roll?) the ball right. So I have only been able to make a few points in the games that I’ve played so far.
Something I fail at. Embarassing for me to play, my brother always wins. I kind of fail at life. Bowling is a game filled of disappointments for me.
I turn towards the lane and look ahead. I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that, somehow, this is normal. I’m supposed to just bowl. Like I’ve done it before.Like it matters that for the first time in my life I’ve been taken out bowling. I don’t tell Jeff or Anne that I’ve never done it before. It’s something every kid knows how to do. Other families I’ve stayed with never bothered to take me so I suppose that it would be okay to just tell them that I don’t know how but I can’t. I just want to fit in here. I just want to belong.
She threw the ball, sweat dripping from her brow, her tongue sticking out of her lips in concentration.
“Steeeeee-rike!” her brother called from behind her, giggling as she danced around.
I wiped my hands on the old rag and threw it back on the chair. I walked over to the table and picked up a dark blue bowling ball. I went the start line and took 3 steps back. The ball, waiting right below my nose. I swung my arm back and skipped to the front and let it rip.
In the bowling alley there lay twelve lanes. At the end of each lane stood ten pins.
Ah all the times I’ve went bowling before were super fun. Good memories. I still remember the cello bros one when I got a huge sundae at Dairy Queen with Jigo afterwards, and the V7 one was pretty hilarious too.
A lot of fun. Took me a long time to learn how to bowl properly, but my best score is around a 180 now. Always loved to go bowling, it’s fun, and competitive, but not insane. Haven’t been in a long time, but would love to go again sometime soon, maybe with Justin and Panda, or Jake and Joey.
I walked out of the bowling alley, I was done trying to have a good time. Soon I began running as if running for my life. I was done. I went home and cried. I was done being the last option to you when she was around. I was done with you loving her but only liking me, and when she was around I was nothing to you. This is the last I’m asking you this. Put my name at the TOP of your list,
Shoot straight, but don’t aim high. Oh goodness, please don’t aim high. Whenever someone aims high while bowling, they make themselves a giant fool. Just be smooth about your throw, and you’ll be rewarded with smug satisfaction.
He laughed and ran and hugged me, bowling me over, grinning with his arms wrapped around me and his laugh shimmered and shook in the air like a school of fish startled into beauty.
That night we went bowling. I was nervous, and I locked myself in the bathroom. He was confident, and when I came out, we played twenty questions, which turned into forty questions, and fifty, until soon we felt we knew everything about each other. He tried to buy me pizza and soda, and I refused, so we went Dutch. He kissed me on the cheek. I cried.
use a ball to knock down pins.. whoever knocks down the most pins after 10 rounds wins with the highest score. there are bumpers you could use if you suck.. usually kids use them so it doesnt go in the side pit. I honestly dont like this sport.. i think its stupid to thrown balls at pins but some people love it and are even on bowling teams.
Bowling for life. The best game I had there was a turkey. Gobble Gobble Bitch! Nah I didn’t say that. I said “I bowled a terkee!” Like the dork that I am.
I tried my hardest to roll the ball but the effort was useless. It went 10 feet ahead and fell straight into the gutter. “Great job” she muttered under her breath. She could already hear the catcalls from behind her.
She tried to make a strike but failed, landing miserably on her butt. Zac got up to help her, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. The sound of a crash resounded in their ears as they turned towards the pins. She had only knocked down one. “Great Job Zoe.” she muttered under her breath. She had just totally embarrassed herself in front of her date.
whenever people get really bored, like extremely bored beyond tears, then they will ask their friends if they want to go bowling. Ok whatever, its bowling you’ll have fun. So they go bowling, and they have a pretty good time, other than eating crappy pizza, wearing crappy shoes, and smelling a bunch of gross smells