I remember back when I took Bowling during my year at ASU... I had no idea I'd be spending 80% of my day in the MU anyway, but there it was. I had to get up from our table we claimed every day on the other side of the wall from the Burger King and walk, oh, about forty steps around the corner, and I was at Bowling 101, at the world-famous Memorial Union Lanes. Always kept at a brisk 55º or so in there. There was a cat who occasionally would pop up out of nowhere and start running around in the lanes, knocking over pins. The lanes had uneven boards from years of abuse from idiots, so every so often your ball would just hop and change direction like a Plinko chip. Yeah, it was crappy, but it was home.

The instructor had shown us the instructional videos made back in the 60's, but then on two of the three days we were supposed to use to set handicaps, class was cancelled.

Our team was me, Samantha, Nathan, and Yusri. We didn't know each other, which is why we formed our team; pretty much everyone else who had signed up did so in groups of 4 friends. One team was four athletes (baseball players I think), one was four drama majors, et cetera. Samantha was in drama, while Nathan was studying art; I had no major picked out, and Yusri didn't speak English.

As we started class on that third day of handicap setting week, of which as I mentioned Monday and Wednesday had been cancelled, I sidled up to the instructor and asked how he planned to set handicaps. "Oh, I guess we'll just go off of today's games," he said offhandedly.

*grin* So, me being the scheming f'er I am, I told Sam and Nathan this news. There was a second or two of silence, anf then Nathan said, "So, if we bowl REALLY crappy today..." and then smiled, as did Sam. We all had the same idea. We didn't need to tell Yusri; he sucked anyway.

So, we bowled some of the worst games of our lives that day. We didn't just chuck it in the gutter, so as to not be obvious, but we certainly had our fair share of Oopses and Oh, Goshes. These aren't verbatim, but I think Sam went 45-52, Nathan went 61-54, I went 55-59, and Yusri went 58-59 (I think his high score all year was 78). It was a thing of beauty. Sam averaged somewehre around 105, I averaged something like 115, and Nathan was up in the 130's. AND NO ONE EVER CAUGHT ON TO US! Of course, that's also in part to the fact that after one week of no one doing the score book, I just did it myself for the rest of the season.

Anyhow, we took the weighted-score title. (We finished second in unweighted, too.) And for all our scheming, plotting, and dastardly deeds, what did we win? 5 free passes to the Memorial Union Lanes. Whoop de doo!!