The Legend of the Destructo-Ball

Back in high school, my friends and I did not do very much with our time. Most of this is to do with the fact that there is not very much to do in the town we grew up in. We would go to Goodwill and the Salvation Army to root through society's unwanted things, lurk around the skate park, eat at Willie's Pizza Buffet when we could afford it, or simply walk around town. That is, until somebody remembered the bowling alley and how it was open most days after school.

We became obsessed... Those of us with jobs blew most of our paychecks there, and those of us without jobs saved allowances and stopped eating lunch so we could go bowling after school. We were so into bowling that even though we were terrible, we wanted to form our own team for the leagues held there.

Of course, being dumb teenagers, we would do things like throw two balls down the lane at once, or backwards through our legs. But the crowning story of the damage we caused that bowling alley, though not the most costly incident we were responsible for, is the story of the destructo-ball.

We were the only people in the bowling alley that day. My friend Andy was before me in the rotation, and upon taking his turn, one of the pins spun towards us a few feet, out of the range of the machine that is supposed to clear away the pins you knock down.

As it was, the pin spun into the gutter and sat there. We all looked down the lane at it, contemplating if we should tell the owner about it. We decided that if we got a gutterball, it would push the pin down the lane and everything would be fine, so I went ahead and took my turn.

I lined up and threw my first ball, blissfully unaware of the chaos about to ensue.

"Oh, good," I thought idly to myself. "It's going to knock that pin down the gutter and out of the way..."

"Oh, it landed ON the pin? Wonder what's gonna JESUS CHRIST!"

The ball exploded into the air, knocked down some pins, then crashed into the pin-setting machine. On the plus side, it did indeed send the rogue pin down the gutter. Everyone froze. We watched the machine at the other end of the lane with bated breath. What the hell just happened? Did we destroy it? It didn't move. Trembling, I hit the reset button on the ball return.

Hooray! It worked! Apparently the people designing this machinery figured that a bowling ball would smash into it eventually. I like to think they had a prophecy that one day the Destructo-Ball would visit upon their creation a devastating blow, but it was probably just an engineering department meeting.

We bowled the rest of the game quietly and like respectable members of society under the watchful eye of the owner, then left as quickly as we could. Something in his glances told us we were beginning to push our luck.

Hey would you look at that. I actually wrote about bowling.