To celebrate our friend Lori’s birthday, Kathy and I went bowling last night with her and her husband Kelly. We had the singular good fortune to have a lane next to a group from the local brain injury treatment center — a bunch of characters who were great fun to talk with. Corey, a patient who claimed a physical age of 30 and a mental age of 4, told us this joke: “I once had a girlfriend who told me that I had the body of a god. That made me feel pretty special inside, until a couple of weeks later when I found out she was a Buddhist.”

Since none of our party were particularly good at bowling, we livened up the two games we played in a variety of ways. Kelly struck the Big Lebowski “Nobody Mess With The Jesus!” pose as he prepared to do his worst. Kathy used the granny shot to great effect. (Kelly reminded us of a motto from his time in the Army: “If it’s stupid, but it works, it isn’t stupid.”) And in a futile attempt to pick up a 7/10 split, I tried bowling with two balls at the same time.

There was a band of 10 year old boys a few lanes over who were celebrating one of their birthdays with bowling, cake, and one of the most tonally uncertain renderings of “Happy Birthday to You” to which I’ve even been witness. Evidently the boys noticed my illicit two-ball technique, as they all started doing the same thing shortly after I did. The dad, who had already been pretty irate with the boys, came close to blowing up when he saw their latest shenanigans. I thought for sure that the boys were going to point over our way and say “but HE did it!” Fortunately, the code of the playground is still evidently intact, and I didn’t get ratted out.

Thanks for your discretion, boys, and Happy Birthday!