I was born without a bowling gene, unlike every other person in the state of Wisconsin. Family and friends alike are on bowling leagues and bowl near-perfect games. I am not like this. However, my ‘klutzy, I will be injured in any activity I try’ gene is doing simply mah-velous!

Allow me to expound: Yesterday Lesley, Steve, and I went bowling. After a few awful frames I started doing well. A strike, a spare, 9 pins here…and then I started playing awfully again. Steve felt like it was his job to be commentator and point out how poorly I was doing. “aaaaaaand another gutter! Ladies and gentlemen, the worst bowler in the world certainly isn’t disappointing us today!”

So of course I got mad.

To illustrate how mad I was, I sat down in directly in front of the lane, blocking it, perhaps expecting an apology…I’m not quite sure. He picked up his ball and said that if I want to get hit, that’s fine. And I’m sitting there like “no way is he going to hit me. No way!” So I’m still there, very confident that (a) I will not be struck with a bowling ball, and (b) I will get an apology of some sort. He approached, striding purposefully down the lane, and I thought he was going to try to go around me, to my right. But as he’s getting very close, all I can see is the ball swinging down and I think “oh my god oh my god oh my god he’s actually going to hit me!” So I duck my head down towards my left shoulder, still anticipating a move to the right, when CRACK! the ball not only solidly strikes my left shoulder, it also solidly strikes my left temple. Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

That’s almost as good as the time I was struck in the head with a golf club. Or the time a ‘friend’ threw a baseball at me, while I, blinded by the sun, failed to catch it and instead it smacked me right in the face. Those, however, are stories for another time. I feel that there may be a god of athletics that is laughing at me from on high.