To continue where I left off last week: this latest new wave of Thai opera simply wouldn’t exist without the efforts of the “big three”, none of whom would or could have had the same impact without the other two. The conclusion being, of course, that if that land mine had gone off we would all be better off for it.

As for the Gutterfingers, the road has become considerably more rocky of late. The first month of the season seemed as easy as a five-star recruit’s college coursework. Now, we’re four fumbles and three arrests in and might have to transfer to Rutgers.

It felt like our feet barely touched the hardwood as we glided over our hapless opponents to first place in the standings. At this point, however, our handicaps have caught up to us and the long, bony finger of reality has inserted itself firmly into our collective colon.

First there was a vicious thrashing during the week of the substitute, for which I paid dearly in the form of the next week’s bar tab. That knocked us off our perch into second place overall. We thought we bounced back the following league night, taking two of three games and the overall. Those points put us back on top going into the most recent week but only by the thinnest of margins.

The fact that our scratch bowling scores are the absolute lowest in the league should have been warning aplenty that we were due for a reckoning. But, since thinking is the tool of the coward and the fool, we blindly forged ahead, oblivious to the danger.

The tool of comeuppance waiting for us this past game was not in the form of a full-sized white-hot penis-shaped diesel locomotive, as awaits Jerry Sandusky and his rotten ilk in Hell, but four gentle souls wearing baseball jerseys waiting to tear us to shreds in the most crushing manner possible.

These fine folks were the nicest people you could ever find. Enthusiastic, yes, awkward as hell—you bet—and they took an excruciatingly long time to deliver their bowling bowls, but their quirks and foibles were all easily explained by the light touch of water that the good lord had decided to place upon their heads. Couldn’t have lost to a more deserving group.

And lose we did. We came out slowly in the first game and paid dearly. One of our bowlers tossing a piddling 76 to pace us to 50 point defeat.

No matter, we all thought. We’d surely bounce back in the second.

With our feet settled beneath us and solidly attached to the floor with the strength of an oatmeal stout that somehow tasted like chewing on the bottom of a barbecue, we roared out to a huge lead. Up by over 100 points according to the little thing on the scoreboard that tells us this information. We had no fear and knew our ship had been righted. But with ice in their veins and the most crippling tenth frame imaginable, this team of stone-cold rollers roared back and put a dagger in our eyeballs, winning by 2 on the final ball. They even waited to bowl last so we could watch them rip our hearts out at full attention.

Thoroughly demoralized, my squad turned to the warm embrace of drink, our only possible edge since the opposition seemed to subsist on a communal jug of some sort of prune cocktail. It was for naught, of course. They had their best game yet, once again lights out in the tenth, and beat us by a solid 30 for the sweep and all 7 league points. We have been humbled. Beaten about the face and neck and thrown into the cabbage-choked gutter that is our namesake, right where we belong.

Time will tell our new place in the league hierarchy but it’s a certainty that the days of the ‘fingers striking fear into opponents is long gone.