Mark It Zero!

So as some of you know, my company has a bowling league (bowling, as in the 10 pin variety). It starts in the Spring each year and runs for about 3 months on a Monday night. This is the 2nd year I have participated and it has been really good in terms of a) having some fun and b) meeting other people from the company that I do not get to work with normally.

Last year, I bowled with a team of guys made up entirely of people from my own team. We did OK, but didn't really take it too seriously. This year I have been on a team which my boss is actually the captain of. So as to not accidentally make my work life harder by pissing my boss of by bowling badly I have had to step it up this year. I even have my own ball and shoes now - not something I would have thought I would own a couple of years back.

And I have actually genuinely done better this year than last year. My average is up by almost 15 pins a game and I improved my personal best score 3 times this season, which was up to 187 going into last night.

But something clicked last night. For one game, I was like a bowler possessed. I bowled 7 strikes and 2 spares in the first 9 frames and then closed out the 10th frame reasonably cleanly too. This left me with the wholly unlikely final score of 243. For those not familiar with scoring in bowling, 243 is actually a very very good score. It would not be out of place to see a professional bowler on the TV put up a score like that.

I can't explain it except to say I was so massively tired and jet lagged that perhaps I was unusually casual and relaxed about it. Based on some calculations people did quickly last night it would appear that I may have bowled the best handicapped game of the league for the entire season, for which I will actually win some money for next week.

Here is the photographic proof. Apologies if it is hard to view, I took it with my camera phone. But if you find my name on the left and then follow that row across to the right you will see a beautiful string of strikes and then finally the 243 score in the last column. If you click the image, it will open a bigger version of it.



Unfortunately though, even my savant-like effort didn't get the team what we really wanted. We needed to win all 4 points last night and have another 2 teams split their games in a particular way and my team could have finished first overall. The other teams obliged and split their games correctly, but we only won 3 and lost 1 point. 1 point! So we finished 2nd overall.

In addition one of the guys who reports to me at work announced last night that he had gotten engaged. So with my game and his announcement, a bunch of us hit the bar after the bowling was over. Shots were done and loud noise was made. I didn't get home until after midnight, and was wide awake again at 5am this morning.

I need a vacation.