An Old Man's Addiction

I have retired from being an attorney, from a second career as an employee of the Florida Department of Revenue and from the third year of seasonal employment working for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service and, at the age of 74, hereby admit that I have an addiction.

My addiction - for it surely is that - compels my awakening in the middle of the night, muting the television set and then playing five or six or seven games of Wii Sports-bowling.

A little background is called for,

Forty-something years ago, TLJ and our four daughters lived in Spring Valley, about an hour north of New York City and on the west of the Hudson River. Joan began bowling while I was working and soon had joined several "scratch" leagues, holding an average that hovered just between 195 and 200. She threw a 16 pound ball with such speed, it became a blur.

There came a time when the Bowling Lanes formed a couple's league; when it was announced that Joan's husband would participate, the crowd anxiously and breathlessly awaited this assumed champion. After all, if the woman's average was stratospheric, his must be even more so. Alas and alack, if only it were so. Joan is 20, nay 100, times the athlete I am or was.

My regular average was in the 130's.

How mortifying.

Now skip ahead to today.

Almost a year ago, one of our daughters and her husband, hereinafter known as Amy and Dan, respectively, purchased a Nintendo Wii game system. The game contains a CD with basic games: baseball, tennis, golf, boxing and, our favorite, bowling. Joan and I would visit and bowl; actually it's not really "bowling for exercise" as while Joan takes the requisite steps as if she were approaching a real and not virtual lane, the ball's action, spin, curve, speed and direction are controlled by the manner in which the remote gizmo is held and aimed and "snapped" as it is released.

Nintendo and other manufacturers offer more advanced (and sophisticated and complex and expensive) bowling games and I ordered one two weeks ago through EBay using the vast profits earned from AssociatedContent and a few other blogging sites. Somehow using my own meager income for a toy is more readily accepted by my conscience. Moreover, my average score had steadily increased, to the point that I was beating TLJ , if not always, most of the time. The game arrived in about a week; it was fully in French and was promptly returned. Refund and abject apologies from the vendor quickly followed, but my average has deteriorated.

So I will continue to work on the basic game, which came with the console, until I am good enough to get fancy.

In the meantime, I am hooked. Whenever I find it hard to sleep or when I awake very early, I sneak into our living room with its 53" screen television. I "mute" the sound both on the television and on the Nintendo console and start to bowl. I cheat. Often. If the first two or three frames are not perfect or close to perfection or if a game starts off well but falls apart in the seventh, eighth or even ninth frame, I am likely to avoid finishing the game and record a lower score. I will close the game and start over, thus allowing me to have a higher average than the Wife. Joan, on the other hand, is a responsible adult and takes no liberties.

One of these days, perhaps by happenstance, I will bowl a perfect game (It can be done; grandson, Josh, bowled a perfect "300" game in our machine.) or win the lottery.

I'm not sure which is more likely or would be more satisfying.