Why do they call it a "turkey," anyhow?

Andrew and I are in a bowling league. (I know, I know...) I thought it would be a good way to force ourselves out of our hermit-like existence and allow us to spend some quality time with friends a few nights each month. (Yeah, we don't get out much in the winter.)

Some things I should have considered before joining our friend's league:
1. I hate bowling.
2. I am REALLY bad at bowling.
3. Rushing around after work in order to get to the bowling alley SUCKS.
4. The league is approximately 1 million weeks long. Seriously. It NEVER ends.
5. It is expensive. When the whole thing is said and done, we'll have spent about $500 on BOWLING. What. The. Ferret.
6. See #1.
7. Bowling alley food does not a dinner make.
8. Bowling shoes. Gross.
9. See #1.
10. My team has lost twice as many times as the other teams in the league.

Yesterday was easily the most painful night yet.

First, our bowling lane was apparently having some kind of mental breakdown because we would need to call an employee over after almost every frame because the pins would not re-rack themselves correctly.

Second, two of our teammates were on call for their jobs and kept getting paged/called, leaving us waiting ten minutes at a time for them to bowl their turn. (I am sure the team we bowled against was equally amused by this.)

Third, our sad malfunctioning lane was next to the lane of another league's team. This team was actually pretty hardcore. Matching t-shirts. Company sponsor. The whole shebang. That in itself isn't a bad thing. The bad thing was that they told my team off for "having no lane etiquette."

Okay, I'm the first to admit that no one ever taught me "the law of the lanes." Basic common sense has told me to wait for the bowler next to me to throw his ball before approaching to throw mine. But what I did not know is that it is considered rude to be anywhere on the lane at all when the bowler in the lane next to you is bowling. Even if you are extremely tiny and leaning against your ball return, waiting for your filthy 8-pounder to roll back to you. I mean, I don't even understand how he could have seen me out of the very corners of his peripheral vision. But he definitely DID see me. Because he gave me hateful eyes and said to me gruffly, "Would you mind stepping off the lane?"

I don't know how me standing six feet from him was impeding his bowling concentration, but I silently stepped off the lane.... as I mentally stuck out my tongue out at him.

Is there some kind of bowling cotillion I can sign up for? I don't want to disgrace myself with poor bowling manners ever again. I have far too much humility for such things. Should I hold out my pinky when I throw my ball? I have no idea what other bowling offenses I have committed.

And the final nail in the coffin was when one teammate who was on call had to actually leave the third (yes, THIRD!) game early when a work emergency arose. In order to figure out how to keep the game moving with her gone, we called over our friend Chris who is the bowling league commissioner. Chris was three sheets to the wind* and had no idea what he was doing as he pressed a clusterferret of buttons on the screen. Whatever he did resulted in two of our teammates being on their 8th frame while I had yet to bowl my third frame. And the other team? The other team had nary thrown a ball.

All of these factors contributed to us not getting home until almost 11 p.m. Oh, bowling night. Thank God there are only 73 more of you.

*Early yesterday morning, Chris swore he saw a ghost. In a bathrobe. At his inlaws' house, which his wife has sworn for years is haunted by ghosts who make much use of the pool table. Chris decided to get obliterated at the bowling alley so he would be drunk enough to fall asleep--instead of shaking in fear of the robed ghost all night long. True story.