This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, May, 2018
There are only a few standby locations for company parties: (1) the office itself, after hours, during which employees awkwardly gravitate toward their own desks, never feeling comfortable as they sip spiked punch in their cubicles with a doubly worrisome confusion of either working at night or drinking during the day, neither of which are actually happening; (2) a restaurant, during which employees wish they were out with their families instead of their bosses; (3) a boss’s house, during which employees resent having to be nice to the boss’s screeching kids, who are a part of the shindig for some reason; (4) a bowling center, where everyone has to participate in an activity at which they’re not good, but at least it’s during business hours.
There aren’t many locations in the world that require specific footwear, let alone require it to those who don’t possess their own. Ski resorts require boots and skis, skating rinks require skates and shoe advertisements require models to wear the shoes being advertised, but none of those activities are as prominent to society as rental shoes in a bowling center.
If you walk onto a ski slope with your own boots and skis, you’re in the majority. When you step onto the ice in your own skates, you’re in the majority (and, if you’re a teen, you’re likely on a date, laughing at your never-skated-before ladyfriend because that’s what you think courting is, not yet figuring out you’ve yet to achieve a second date with anyone). When you walk into a bowling center during open play with your own shoes, all eyes turn to you.
It’s a safe assumption anyone reading this publication possesses his or her own bowling shoes. We’re the people who walk into the company bowling party with a 48-ball roller and handheld shoes, immediately intimidating everyone else, especially the two guys in accounting fighting over the last pair of size-10 rentals.
Then, the pressure is on to actually perform up to our aura. These people expect us to strike every time, and that’s the burden we put on ourselves, even if the real truth is all we have to do is hook the ball a little and everyone will think we’re pros, no matter what our score.
To us, though, the score is paramount. This is our chance to be Guy Who Bowled 250 around the office for the rest of time, which is way better than our existing moniker of Guy Who Stole Cheryl’s Cheerios Twice.
If we’re not striking, we have to mitigate the situation. We must corner someone—preferably the office gossip leader—and explain how the lanes haven’t been oiled in weeks (with an inevitable explanation of lane oil and that yes, it does exist), and even a plastic ball is hooking off the lane (throwing in a meticulously detailed sidebar on cover-stock composition, of course), and if only we’d brought our 50-ball roller, we’d have the extra two we needed to combat these abhorrent conditions.
To further make our point, we have to explain our strategy for the rest of the party. Since we only have 48 rocks from which to choose, we’re going to have to ball down, move left, increase our speed and try to keep the ball right enough long enough to hit the appropriate breakpoint, then hope we carry, which is no guarantee because there’s something off about these pins.
No one will understand, especially as they watch Ted from IT alternate between incompetently dropping the ball three feet short of the foul line and inadvertently launching the ball 20 feet through the air, striking every time.
Ted becomes Guy Who Bowled 250, and we become Guy Who Has His Own Shoes But Isn’t as Good as Ted. The next day, we quit our jobs, throw our bowling equipment in the river and move to Switzerland to take up skiing.