A Pirate’s Life for Me

Just wanted to put out a quick plug for my cousin-in-law’s new pirate-themed restaurant opening in downtown Stillwater in May!  Yarrrr matey!

http://www.stillwatergazette.com/articles/2008/04/05/news/news110.txt

Namesake

Just to clear things up right off the bat, I’m not going to talk about my namesake, mostly because my mom thinks she made up my name (ha! love you, mom), but moreso the namesake of my blog. 

So, A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of participating in one of the greatest social (or should I say, not-so-social) events in history, bingo.  No, I’m not just saying “bingo,” like, “yeah, you got the answer right,” but actual game of BINGO.  Picture this.  A huge room, no windows, just fluorescent lighting and tropical themed decor.  There is a faint smell of strongly-buttered, partially-burnt popcorn.  The place is packed, yet no one is talking.  Except one voice over the loudspeaker, a monotone combination of random letters and numbers, and a sporadic holler every couple minutes from the crowd, it’s eerily quiet.  The multitude of tables are covered in sheets upon sheets upon tablets (no joke) of bingo cards, various stampers – or daubers, as the pros say - (I’m pretty sure I saw a set with plastic farm animal heads for caps and some that were organized in their very own customized carrying case), as well as the personal shrines to the early 90s, or was that just someone’s lucky charm troll doll collection?  Yes, that’s right, I was at none other than Rochester’s-own, Flamingo Bingo.

I had forgotten that “and after!” was a common response after someone called “B4″ in bingo… I don’t know where that originated or where I heard it the first time, probably camp, but it wasn’t until that night at Flamingo Bingo that I remembered that’s where I must’ve come up with JennaB4 [and after], at least the “and after” part. Either way, it was a wild night, very fun, and who knew bingo was such an intense game?  Believe it or not, we actually got ’shushed’ from one of the – I don’t know what you’d call them – referees?  And I can’t even tell you how many people shot the Stink Eye in our direction.  Apparently it is frowned upon to socialize (a.k.a. whisper to your neighbor, let alone give out any impression that you are actually having a good time) while playing bingo.  Who knew?  Anyways, though no money was actually awarded after two and a half hours of flamingo fun, I have to admit, it was a good time, and yes, it was always quite the celebration (a quiet one, of course) on my end of the table everytime ‘B4′ was called. 

I have put my special teal dauber in a safe place for my next trip down to Roch.  I will also have to dig out my lucky rabbit’s foot keychain that I got in third grade.  I sure hope I kept that.  :) ♥ jb