If you don’t drink beer when you bowl, then you’re simply doing it wrong. Yes, I know there are people who don’t imbibe alcohol and I respect that. I don’t personally understand it, but I do respect it. But when I meet people who don’t drink (and I rarely meet these people because I’m usually at the bar) I think to myself, a person who doesn’t drink is a person who doesn’t bowl. Everyone knows that drinking and bowling go together like peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots, and sunshine and bikinis. Some things are just better when they are combined.
Drinking doesn’t just make bowling better; it’s darn near a requirement. Here are some of the reasons drinking should be legislated by government statute to be required while bowling. First, it’s the shoes. You can’t look cool in bowling shoes. A beer helps you forget that you look silly. And these shoes are rentals which, let’s be honest, is disgusting. Putting your foot into a dark, warm, wet, soggy place where hundreds of other feet have been is not anyone’s idea of a good time.
And these aren’t just hundreds of feet; these are hundreds of bowler’s feet. You are sharing shoes and germs with people who frequent the bowling alley. Do you want to share clothes or skin diseases with them? I don’t think so. Now, it’s proven medical knowledge that alcohol kills germs. Your feet need you to drink alcohol to keep yourself healthy. To get your body to sweat alcohol through your feet takes a lot of effort on your part. I estimate you have to drink about a gallon of beer in order to get the alcohol-feet-sweats. That may sound daunting, but how much do you value your health?
The second reason drinking should be mandated for bowling is the scoring system. If you don’t bowl every day, then you are like me and you have no idea how bowling scores work. With one point per pin, 10 pins, and 10 frames, how can the maximum score be 300? Not only is it a mystery, but the computer program and the television put in place to show you your score is completely baffling. Sometimes your score is up to date, but if you get a strike or a spare, then you have to wait another frame before your score is updated. It’s confusing and frustrating. I don’t have the patience for that nonsense. Beer helps me cope with the stress and complication of bowling scores.
There does have to be a balance. You need to drink alcohol to bowl, but you still have to be able to physically bowl. You are throwing a heavy ball down a lane and that takes some dexterity. Unfortunately, dexterity is something that alcohol does hamper, considerably. You need to find that sweet spot of looseness, where you’re feeling good, not thinking about the yucky shoes or the goofy scoring, yet you can still see the 10 pins at the end of the lane. If you see 20 pins, you’re in big trouble. So, with bowling, just like in life, alcohol is both the cause and solution to all of your problems.
Recently I had the opportunity to put my theories on drinking and bowling to the test in front of a large group of people. The Southern California chapter of the National Auto Sport Association (this is a group of crazy race car drivers) decided to have their year-end awards banquet at a posh lounge/bowling alley in Lancaster. Yes, I know the terms posh and Lancaster generally don’t go together, but this place was actually really cool. Race car drivers always carry a fair amount of bravado with them wherever they go and they are immensely competitive about everything. That is what makes them race car drivers. So when it was time to bowl, the trash talking began. Who would win the bowling tournament? Who could bowl their weight? Who could do it while wearing just socks? Who could do it while drinking beers? Who could do it drinking craft brew IPAs? Who could do it while holding a beer in one hand for every throw? Being a crazy race car driver myself, and never wanting to back down from a good challenge, I decided I could, and would, do all of those things.
And so it began. Ten frames, in socks, bowling ball in one hand, beer in the other hand for every throw. The beer flowed endlessly from the taps, and it wasn’t some cheap lager with low alcohol content, it was Tactical Ops IPA with ass-kicking alcohol levels in it. I was feeling good, real good in fact. My mouth was working overtime as I talked trash, drank beer, and chucked bowling balls down the lanes. I even came up with my own annoying slogan.
“Beers up! Pins down!” I yelled it out before every throw as I held my pint of beer high in the air.
So, how did it work out? I bowled five strikes in a row and finished with a score of 190 points. Yes, that’s more than my weight, in fact it was the absolute best score of my life, and I did it in socks, hammered, while holding a beer glass in my hand for every throw. Thank you beer, you’re the greatest.
Rob does his best impression of the voice of the guy from the Dos Equis beer commercials, “I don’t always bowl, but when I do, I’m completely smash drunk.” You can read more from Rob Krider or contact him at robkrider.com.
This article appears in Mar 24-31, 2016.