Utterly Gutterly

Minor panic today as I thought I lost my passport. It’s fine. I found it. Instead of being in its usual safe home in a cupboard downstairs; I seemed to have had an epiphany and thought that the far better place to keep it would be in a large brown envelope, in a folder, at the bottom of my wardrobe. Hmm, quite confused as my ideas are usually fantastic. Going to mark that as an off day, send Sophie my passport details, and secure that golden ticket to Zante in a month’s time.

Yesterday I went back to the 50’s as the social committee at my work had planned bowling for us work-far-too-hard employees at a retro bowling alley, Bloomsbury Lanes. Although it was quite a shock to be led down an alleyway away from the posh hotel it sits atop; it was a marvellous little surprise at the stylish décor, and when we settled into our teams, the atmosphere and camaraderie made us feel right at home in this vintage setting.

First donning our clown shoes, then taking advantage of the company’s very generous tab (that’ll be 4 vodka and cokes for me, although not nearly as impressive as Egg’s 7), we settled into our teams. ‘Utterly Gutterly’ was the name of our team, and I made jolly well sure we lived up to that name… Having never bowled without the trusty barriers – of which I’d usually find a technique of ricocheting the ball zig-zag like to get my strikes – gutterballs were apparently all I was destined for in this game. However, included in our team was the main boss (aswell as us admin girls, and an accountant who thankfully made me look quite good at bowling with her equally dismal scoring); and as he watched with envious eyes at the adjacent team who were continuously high-fiving and cheering after copious strikes, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

It’s interesting to see that there are definitely 3 ‘types’ of bowlers. The “competitives”; the “try-hards”; and the “don’t give a shit” people. I’d like to think us admin girls were the “try-hards”: we ranged from average to below-average, but we did improve. Whether that was the practise or the vodka, who knows… (I blamed my contacts drying up on any gutterballs, but was very pleased when I finally got a spare). The said accountant definitely fell into the “don’t give a shit” category – after a baffling amount of gutterballs, came a manic laugh with her head thrown back, a cheeky smile, and then a hop down to her seat.
The main boss, however, was a “competitive”. Not only was he scouring the lanes for the competition, he would actually fall to the ground after each swing of the ball. I’m perhaps making this sound a little more dramatic than it actually was. It was more to do with him unbalancing himself with thou mighty throw, and so would fall and lean his bowling hand on the lane to get a better look of where the ball was going. This “damsel in distress” technique, as I have coined it, actually seemed to work some magic with those darn pins – he got the wondrous turkey. And that was a Cheshire cat smile, if I ever did see one…

A couple of hours later, after bowling our arms off (“but, I can’t come into work today, you see. I was so enthused by the team building, that I bowled my poor wrists to shreds. So I can’t type. But a paid day off is well deserved, don’t you think…?”); and after many, many American mini hotdogs and hamburgers, we retired to the bar. After the bar closed, and our normal, now boring in comparison, shoes were returned, it was off to the pub. Usual mischief such as the passing round of a slice of cucumber into people’s drinks without them noticing ensued (ending a little more darkly as salt and pepper were added to the mix), we soon stumbled to the train station, ready for bed.

Amazingly, our team didn’t win (though the main boss scored second highest individual score out of the six teams!). It was revealed that we did win a consolation price: for best team name. Utterly Gutterly won it for us! We all squealed with glee as upon our desks sat a box of Celebrations each! (I think the scale of how impressed I was can be conveyed in my various underlining.)

These minor celebrations (pun intended) did not, however, sweeten the fact that we had all decided to get drunk on a Tuesday night. Thus, Wednesday morning was not a pretty sight, and the only thing we were scoring was huge gulpings of water and a couple of headache tablets.




>> Listening to: Gonna Score Tonight
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