It's All Relative

BINGO


This past weekend I went along with my roommate (the normal one) and some of her friends to play BINGO down at a locals casino. I've never played real casino BINGO before and thought it would be a pretty fun way to spend $15 on a Friday night. Well, I soon learned that legit BINGO is quite the experience. Let me paint the scene for you:


First of all, the group I am going with make BINGO a regular activity. Mind you, these are twenty-something adults I'm with, not senior citizens, who the majority of the crowd was. We get there early, around 8:30 to "Reserve" our table for our group. We sit and I'm immediately pointed in the direction of the "Blotter" machine.


"A what?" I ask.


"A Blotter. You need a blotter. To mark your numbers. They're a dollar, or more if you want a good one"

First thing I think, I didn't know the blotter market was so competitive as to offer so many options. Also, the "Blotter" machine is definitely a vending machine, with literally 50 different types of blotters. I kept it simple with green.


As it gets closer to 9 p.m. (our game time) a line begins to form next to the cashier. My group instictively head over and stand at the end of the line. The following conversation takes place:


Me: "So how much is a card?"


Them: "Well, they don't have cards. They have sheets. We get the Small Rainbow."


Me: "What is a Small Rainbow?"


Them: "It's a stack of about 6 sheets with 12 BINGO squares on each page"


Me: "12? That's a lot."


Them: "Yeah it is. You might want to buy just a sheet of 6 to start out. It can get a little crazy."


Right. Well, not one to be outdone, especially when it comes to things like BINGO, I say,


"No. I'll get the rainbow thing. Go big or go home, right?"


So here we all are, with our blotters, our "Small Rainbows" and our complimentary Diet Pepsi's, awaiting the start of the game. To be quite honest, I'm a little nervous. And I had good reason to be. The numbers are read over the crappiest PA system I've ever heard. I can barely make out what the woman whose reading the numbers is saying. The whole time I'm going, "What? B-29?" "No, G-35" Luckily there's a couple huge boards that keep track of the numbers that have been read. Pausing to check the number throws me off and as I'm strugglings to scan my 12 BINGO squares before the next number is called, it's again practically coughed through the mic. It's rather intense. So much actually that no one talks. No one. It's silent, with the only sound coming from the inky blotters squishing the paper. Finally, after 10 minutes or so, a BINGO is hollered and much like the pressue being released from a tire, the entire room is filled with disappointed"Oh's" and "Ah's" and the immediate clatter of the elderly elbowing the person next to them exclaiming, "Look, I only need one more"

No one from our group won, but it was definitely really funny to experience anyway. I actually got really close a couple times and I found myself getting extremely nervous at the prospect of having to declare my BINGO. The anxiety was awful.