Gracie went to the neighbor girl’s birthday party yesterday morning. It was held at Leisure Lanes, the local bowling alley. I haven’t bowled in years, but it was fun. There were about a half dozen girls in Lane 1, and about a half dozen boys in Lane 2. Jen and I later rented Lane 3 so she could whoop me a couple times.
The bowling alley has a computerized scoring system, which is wonderful, since I never quite grasped the specifics of scoring the game. Each player enters his or her name into the computer, and when it’s your turn, your name is displayed in big letters on the screen. However, due to space and/or resolution constraints, only the first six letters of your name are displayed when it’s your turn; if the screen displayed more, there wouldn’t be room for all ten frames and your total score. Personally, I would have just used a slightly smaller font, but that was the decision that was made.
This six-letter truncation was most apparent yesterday when a young lad named Christopher bowled his first frame. His truncated appeared in large letters on the screen: CHRIST. Amy, the birthday girl’s mother, noticed first and announced to everyone that Christ was in the bowling alley. We all had a good laugh (I mean, sure, it wasn’t side-splittingly funny, but it was a good try). As the laughter subsided, Bob, the birthday girl’s father, quietly said, “He just had a big birthday or something, didn’t he?” Now that one got me. Most of the folks either didn’t hear it or didn’t quite get the reference, but I was laughing at that well into the evening.
And for those of you keeping score at home, no, I didn’t break 100 yesterday. But I’m OK with that.