There is light amid the darkness. Not only did mister Lily and I (mostly him) actually win a game last week but we are now on week 24 or 25 of 27. I think it’s 24 but it’s hard to tell from the weekly results sheet.

Usually when our married teammates miss a week, which has been rather often in the post-Christmas bowling era, they send a text message to let us know. Not so this past week. We were left in the lurch, waiting to see if they would show up at their normal one-minute-before-the-game time. We weren’t surprised but it did really sink our hopes for any success that night.

The other team only had two members as well. A nice couple in their 50s I would say, they were fun to play with and didn’t mind reminding Lily that bowling is not life or death. Probably so he’d stop moaning at them about our absent teammates. Unfortunately for us their team’s missing duo had pre-bowled quite well and we only got 90% of our other half’s average. They basically had our hamsters in a sack before we even started.

Game one went pretty much as expected. Deflated by our long odds and deep sobriety, both of us rolled tepid games barely squeaking past the hundred mark. My 107 just nosing past his 105 and adding to the averages for a paltry 423 total. Ugly and almost sinfully inept. Add in the handicap — ours 16 points higher — and we lost 822 – 779.

Game 2 I realized that a few pints of beer would not be righting my ship as I stumbled my way to a 106. Lily upped his to 127 and we got hammered again, 911 to 800 with the handies capped.

Game 3 looked to be the same kind of dumpster juice sucking embarrassment as the first two. Somehow, though, Lily ran himself into a hot streak like the Gutterfingers haven’t seen before. He striked and spared his way to a new team record 197 (passing our fine lady bowler’s 196) and narrowly missed out on his first 200 game. Good thing, too. We’ll never hear the end of this “record” game until she comes out again and tops it. I coughed up a 111 and we managed to just barely take the win, 875 – 871.

Of course we did lose the overall total as well as two of three but at least there was some scrap of life to pep our steps on the way out the door. Now hopefully only a few more weeks and Lily will be off to start his spring Casino league with a couple of blue hairs from the golden girls. Quite a team that will be with his long beard, tattoos, and metal tee shirts. They love him (for now). Probably just talk about their cats all game.

Enjoy your evening and make sure to sign up and donate now to stop the newt crisis. Better yet, glue yourself to a drainage pipe and set your clothes alight. If you don’t you are a blight on humanity and you are literally stomping them to death with your own boots.
You sick, evil, Nazi monster.