This is how we rolled

Man, The Modern Gal is looking a little pale lately. All words, no pictures or videos makes for a very boring-looking blog. Let's fix that, shall we?

(Don't watch if you're offended by potty-mouth language)


Why do I bring up the Dude? Well I am a huge fan of the Coen brothers' flicks, but that's not why. It's because I did something this weekend that I haven't done in years upon years: I bowled on a Saturday night.

To be clear: bowling on a Saturday night is far different than bowling any other night of the week or even bowling on a Saturday afternoon. I've rolled on a random Tuesday night with friends just to break up the monotony of the week. For my 25th birthday, my friends and I commenced an in-denial kiddie bowling party on a Saturday afternoon that came with pizza and coke served in teeny-tiny paper Dixie cups. There's not anything terribly weird about bowling in those situations though. Bowling on Saturday night, however, involves a whole different subculture.

Sure, there are plenty of normal people at the alley on a Saturday night. People who just want to have a good time. Families looking for some PG fun. Then there's also the bleach-blonde, orangey fake bake gal wearing an inappropriately tight sparkly pink halter top with a big bow on the front (when it's 30 degrees outside).

There's the classic jukebox lineup: Britney Spears' 'Crazy' followed by GNR's 'November Rain.' And Chris Brown followed by Conway Twitty. I only wish I were kidding.

And did you know that they still turn the lights out at 10 p.m. for cosmic bowling despite the fact that black lights and day-glo paint stopped being cool like 10 years ago? (or at least as best as I can tell -- I really don't know what it is the kids are into these days besides Hannah Montana.)

I was a regular at the bowling alley in my high school days. Many people have a mall phase or a movie theater phase when they're in their teens. My friends and I had a bowling alley phase. When you go as often as we did, you roll pretty decently.

But as an adult, unless you're in a bowling league (and I think it's very awesome if you are) you're probably lucky to break 100 -- hell, you may be lucky to even break 50. It may have been months or even years since you last bowled. You're not as agile as you once were. You can't see the markers on the lane to line up your roll as well as you once could. I tell you, it's a bitch to get old. I tell you, in our party most of us were celebrating simply knocking pins down and not rolling a gutter ball.

And then there's the whole deal of adding alcohol to the equation. We were at a family establishment that tried to make it as difficult as possible on the underage drinkers -- you had to go to the bar to get a drink and you could only get one drink at a time and there were no pitchers. Let me repeat: NO PITCHERS. What that all adds up to is more time spent in line at the bar than at your lane waiting your turn to bowl. It took us two hours to get through one game.

Still, it was a blast to be able to laugh at myself and my bowling skillz (hey, I rolled a 91!) and the characters around us. You know, sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well ...