autoschediastic asseverations

Zoe went to stay over at her dad’s tonight…which meant that I had the evening to do whatever I chose to do. The possibilities were endless. You know what I did? I went with mum to BINGO.

O-M-G

When did this quaint little pastime, usually reserved for those little purple haired ladies who had enough time between each call to knit a scarf become so bloody intense? Whatever happened to bingo being a staple fund raiser that made more mess than it did money? I mean this is serious business now!

First theres the supplies. Must have numerous blobbers, or dobbers or whatever the heck they are bloody called! You know the ones I mean, they make pretty little perfect circles, coincidentally just the right size to cover a number on your standard bingo sheet. In every color imaginable. At least 3 shades of each. Then theres the glue. Yes you heard me right…THE GLUE!! And not just any glue, but special BINGO glue, used for gluing single game sheets to the table. When your playing 7 sheets at a time it’s kinda hard to keep them all down on the table with just one arm while your sitting out in the breeze in the smoking section. Of course it doesn’t stop there. But I don’t have the time, and you probably think I’m nuts already. Lets move right along….

Next is the preparation. Must arrive nearly an hour early in order to get seating that is acceptable. Tickets must be purchased..theres a lingo all of it’s own involved in doing so, luckily for this born again virgin of the bingo world, dear mum was there to help me out with that. I handed over the spondula and was promptly handed a pile of color coded bingo books and assorted single sheets - these were for the jackpot games. After obtaining the patchwork quilt that was once a tree or ten, head back to seat. I swear you need warm up excercises for next step.
I shit you not, I think my mouth stayed open for 10 minutes as I sat and watched as the never ending supply of blobber thingys were extracted from supply bag (the photo doesn’t do it justice!) and lined up in the middle of the table, the first jackpot sheets were glued down in place all ready to go, and then came the instructions for the ‘feature’ prizes. For each and every game (bar the jackpot ones) there are two prizes. Obviously one for getting a full house -aka bingo- but the other one happens prior to that. Basically if you get the numbers in certain combinations, thats a feature win. For example. Noahs Ark. 2 numbers from each of the three lines. Or pyramid. 1 number on first line, 2 on the second and 3 on the third. Then theres the basic lines. All of the top row, or bottom, or two rows etc etc etc. There’s a myriad of these and in order to save confusion (YEAH RIGHT!) it’s apparently a good idea to underline the appropriate numbers for each game. I did so. Still with mouth open.

I couldn’t believe it. My last recollections of bingo didn’t include all this stuff…I was getting worried about how I was going to cope. So much to do. So much to remember! So many games I had no chance of winning simply because my brain was fried already and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to spot that legs 11 to save my life.

I obviously managed to survive the night, and still have brain functionality. Only just. I’m still in awe over how much you can win on the last game of the night. Are you ready for it?

$10,000

If you get bingo within 45 calls on the last jackpot game of the night, you win ten grand. Like I said, this bingo she be serious stuff now.

Oh the other thing I forgot to mention was where this was held. It’s at a local high school hall, that by day is a basketball court/assembly area, and by one night and one afternoon a week is the domain of a local church who are using a machine as a caller for what I’m now referring to as ‘bingo on steroids’ for appx 500 people. I am so scared of what the bingo hall we used to go to back in Victoria is now like, I think I’m going to have nightmares…..nighty night peoples. Time for me to go and have a snooze in my bed which is minus the munchkin tonight. I might even be able to do starfish if I feel like it!

• views: 445

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 9th, 2006 at 12:57 am and is filed under are you shitting me?, true story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.