The march continues. The ‘fingers are still mired in second-last place. After what very well may be 6 games in the second half (or so) of the year we’ve managed 16 points. The leaders have 34 and the next 6 teams are all cheek-to-jowl with 28 to 32 points each. With each week good for 7 points (2 per game won, 1 for the overall score) the maximum would be 42 points if indeed we’ve played 6 games.

I don’t think we’re catching them unless we go hog wild next month but the silver lining is that the last-place team has only 4 points for the year. The sick part is that they’re one of the best group of bowlers in the league and they’re just getting ham-boned by the handicap system. A crying shame but it’ll keep us out of the very bottom of the barrel. I hope.

The team we played last week was a good test. Their handicap was only 12 points higher than ours and they had once absent roller so only got 90% of her average. It should’ve tilted the matter in our favour but this year has taught us that if we can find new ways to drag ass down a bowling alley, we will.

In the opener I pulled off my worst game of the year. Absolutely porked it. A brilliantly hideous 77 was my contribution to the team’s loss. It was close, too, a mere 15 points between us. If I had thrown more than zero strikes and a single spare we might just have had it.

Game 2 was a crackling good match – we actually ended up with the exact same scratch score of 484. Unfortunately, the slight handicap difference made it two games to none for the other guys.

We finally got our tails all straightened out and had a winning game 3, putting up the best score of the night between our teams. A 20-point margin of victory, however, wasn’t enough to also take the overall score. We lost that by only 6 points and went home with just the 2 for our efforts and secured our placing near the bottom of the heap.

Next week I might just skip it. Maybe I’ll pre-bowl just to see what that’s all about. Enjoy your Valentine’s Day, folks. This is certainly a good time of year to get your noses dirty but just remember to come up for air once in a while.