(no subject)
I was thrown out of deep concentration while watching the final installment (Love on the Run, or if you're French, L' Amour en Fuite) of Truffaut`s Antoine Doinel series when I heard a knock at the door. There stood Joe waiting to be let in. After a short conversation about his new journalism "job," he asked me if I wanted to go to Bingo Night with him. I was about to tell him that I would pass when his phone rang. As he talked on his cellular telephone that he supposedly hates, I had a chance to ponder my choice of plans for the evening: play Bingo in a hall where the smell of stale cigarettes, crushed dreams, and death lingered, or sit at home being a good student by reading Plato`s Republic and writing a paper. Right then, my choice became clear. Bingo fever had swept over me.
Joe, Matt, Roderick, and I arrived at the Bingo hall late (due to Roderick`s notorious bad punctuality -- so notorious, in fact, that it has spawned a new phrase: "pulling a Roderick") so we missed the first game. And as we walked into a room full of people furiously dabbing sheets of recycled paper, it became apparent that we were the youngest people there by about thirty years. But even though we were young and rookies, the Bingo veterans accepted us with open arms. Sandra, a trash collector who considers digging through people`s garbage to find discarded treasures a "fringe benefit," showed us the ropes and told us a few good stories.
About the third or fourth game, the pattern was to get a block of six without using the free space. I casually mentioned that I only needed two more. The next ball came on the screen: B 10. I looked down and realized that I was only one away from Bingo. The boys looked at me with faux jealousness. "Come on I 17," I thought out loud, half hoping that I wouldn`t win so I wouldn`t have to yell. We all watched the television screen with bated breath. The magistrate turned the ball around: I 17. I raised my hand and one of the officials came over to check my card. "Yell out Bingo," he instructed. And I yelled it with such a voracity that it was rumored to have been heard from at least three people away. People shuffled and tore their cards off with unrest and anger. I beamed and told my friends that I would treat them all to Taco Bell -- as long as they stayed under a dollar. Bingo fever had not only swept over me; it won me fifty bucks.
This story and picture are complimentary from my Fotolog.
Joe, Matt, Roderick, and I arrived at the Bingo hall late (due to Roderick`s notorious bad punctuality -- so notorious, in fact, that it has spawned a new phrase: "pulling a Roderick") so we missed the first game. And as we walked into a room full of people furiously dabbing sheets of recycled paper, it became apparent that we were the youngest people there by about thirty years. But even though we were young and rookies, the Bingo veterans accepted us with open arms. Sandra, a trash collector who considers digging through people`s garbage to find discarded treasures a "fringe benefit," showed us the ropes and told us a few good stories.
About the third or fourth game, the pattern was to get a block of six without using the free space. I casually mentioned that I only needed two more. The next ball came on the screen: B 10. I looked down and realized that I was only one away from Bingo. The boys looked at me with faux jealousness. "Come on I 17," I thought out loud, half hoping that I wouldn`t win so I wouldn`t have to yell. We all watched the television screen with bated breath. The magistrate turned the ball around: I 17. I raised my hand and one of the officials came over to check my card. "Yell out Bingo," he instructed. And I yelled it with such a voracity that it was rumored to have been heard from at least three people away. People shuffled and tore their cards off with unrest and anger. I beamed and told my friends that I would treat them all to Taco Bell -- as long as they stayed under a dollar. Bingo fever had not only swept over me; it won me fifty bucks.
This story and picture are complimentary from my Fotolog.