Earlier in the week I had text one of my best friends,
Candice, asking if we could have a long overdue girl’s night out—I wanted to go
see Magic Mike (heehee). Unfortunately, she already had plans to see it with a
coworker. What we were going to do now?
Well, we ended up ended with nine sheets of bingo cards and
some markers.
On Friday nights in my small town, the local Lions Club
holds Bingo at seven o’clock sharp. Frequented by the little old ladies of the
town (and occasionally the coerced husband), this weekly Winder tradition is an
intense two and a half hours. Most everyone has played bingo before, in some
shape or another. But this was serious, intense, competition-like bingo. People have their lucky seats, they have their
lucky markers, and woe be unto thee who talks while the numbers are being
called.
We bought our cards and markers and looked around for where
to sit. Finally, spotting a few familiar faces, we chose a two spots in the
middle of the middle row, directly under a ceiling fan. There’s no air
conditioning in the Winder Lions Club, so the seats under the fans our coveted
items.
So, we had our cards and markers and we were feeling lucky—all
that’s left to do is get five in a row right?
Hah.
I had played bingo once before here when I was about six
years old with my parents—more for the experience than for the love of bingo.
Apparently (maybe because I had been six) I hadn’t paid much attention to the
entire experience, because there were things listed on the program sheet that I
had never seen before.
Hat pin, double postage stamp, small picture frame…what in
the world were these? I thought all you had to do was get an entire row
covered. “Well”, we thought, “We’ll play it cool and act like we know what we’re
doing, even though we don’t and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
But after a little deliberation, we decided just to ask the
ladies sitting next to us, who were more than happy to help during the
ten-minute intermission. I went off to get drinks and when I returned, Candice
was an expert. A hat pin is four in a corner and a diagonal tail, double
postage stamp is all four in a corner and four in the adjacent corner, and
small picture frame is covering up the numbers that frame the free space.
It may come as no surprise that these particular three games
didn’t go so great for us. The rest of the rounds included two early bird
rounds, a block of nine, a six pack, a letter X. In the letter X round, we
learned that you’re not supposed to mark anything on your card unless it
actually goes in the X. That way, when the official reader of the numbers comes
to double check your bingo card, he doesn’t have to search for it.
Of course, we mostly ignored this rule (heehee) because as
Candice said “It just makes me feel better to think that I actually have a good
card by seeing all those marks.”
The night ended by a jackpot coverall round—this one we knew
how to do. Taking a swig of our Mountain Dew and Root Beer (the strongest drinks
served and the strongest need) we high-fived and said, “We’ve got this!”
A marking frenzy ensued and things were looking dismal for
both of us at the beginning. After twenty balls had been called it seemed we
only had a total of about fifteen between us. All of sudden, things looked up
and suddenly a few minutes later, Candice was only two away from bingo and I
was one.
O-64 stood between me and the jackpot of $800.
One ball later some yelled “Bingo!” someone yelled one ball
later and a nice looking lady whom I think is actually friends with my
grandmother took home the jackpot.
Even though Candice and went home empty handed, we left with
fun memories and plans to go back the next Friday that neither of us have plans
and are in town. It was honestly one of the best girl’s nights filled with lots
and lots of laughing that I’ve had in a while.
So, my advice: don’t scoff at the mundane “old lady”
activities such as bingo or bake sells. Well…I don’t know about the bake sells.
Those do sound like they’d be pretty boring. But seriously go out and give
bingo a shot! You just might end up having boat loads of fun. We sure did!
