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This week’s play starts on the journey to skittles, when in an unnerving moment at Aztec roundabout a red car swerved from behind Wiggle, passed by in a blur then swerved back in front of her before screeching to a halt at the lights that had been beaming down in red on the scene for the whole performance, the driver displaying great dexterity & bravado, which didn’t go unnoticed: Wiggle possibly wouldn’t have used such savagely colourful expletives had she known at the time it was Lodge – apparently giving Compact the rally-ride of his life to skittles as his birthday treat.
In stark contrast to his arrival, it took Compact a good 10 minutes to get the game remotely under way: for starters he’d forgotten The List that Craptain & Wiggle had taken great pains to produce so that he’d know exactly who he had to call on, & therefore had to spend time thunking & ringing round to rustle up the correct number of bodies – & secondly he was busy telling everyone it was his birthday in the hopes the bottles of beer would keep coming. Ever professional, we had to steal a sheet from the Legion Rams’ scorebook so that we could submit the evening’s required details, & with Wiggle in charge of that & Compact poised for chalking up the game finally got under way just the right side of the 8.15pm watershed.
ACT 1: Barnesy Junior & TaffyBJ, who’d spent his previous hour or so stood on a football field getting chilled to the bone, tried to shake off the lethargy & fit of yawning being in the warm bosom of the Almond family again induced, or maybe it was just the sweltering heat of the alley itself! I didn’t think it was that hot, but The Boys were fussing & having hot flushes, & in trying to stand away from the radiators they all ended up crammed into one corner instead! With a quick change of Welsh Boyo – Jocky was chalked up to play with BJ initially, but Taffy started on some long involved story about having to do a taxi run at some point in the evening, & if he didn’t play early, because he couldn’t say when The Call would come, chances were he’d have to be an ‘anker: that was enough to convince Compact, & the switch was made, no chances taken – it was curtain up. BJ made a cracking start, had a bit of a wheel wobble halfway through his performance, but pulled himself together to finish on a healthy 24. Taffy’s balls veered almost as wildly as Lodge’s Cheetah VXR, but he too managed to keep it decent by scoring 14. Unfortunately a bar steward on the other team hit a 30, which meant we were denied an early lead, having to face a 9-pin deficit as the curtain fell at the end of the first Act.
Act 2 – Lodge & MiniDiskLodge scored a 5 on his first up, but having missed hitting wood with his 3rd ball he complained that it was because he didn’t get enough support whilst he was playing. Stung into defence by this criticism, the Old & Treacherous questioned what support was forthcoming of the Yoof considering they scarper quick as you like most weeks, & the riposte was that he, Lodge, couldn’t help it if he was young & had a social life. Way to go to earn fuller support… sympathy was at sub zero when he got a dcuk on his 2nd up, Orical orating quite snittily that what does that matter to someone who has a social life?, adding that he’d had to take tranquillisers before he came out to skittles because it’s his only social event of the week & he gets too excited. The drugs must be working well is all I have to say about that. Of course, all Lodge might have meant was that his underwear was underperforming, but I'm quite glad no-one thought to go there at the time. Lodge soldiered on to yomp himself 21 pins, with MiniDisk bringing up the rear with a 15.
In an attempt to pass on lessons learned, Compact had advised MiniDisk to divest himself of his jacket before playing. All this resulted in was an incredulous look that precisely conveyed Son’s scorn of Dad’s direction. However, having played his first up wearing the jacket, MiniDisk quickly stripped off after that, finding that it did indeed bring its own restrictions, & there was widespread admiration that not one “I told you so” escaped Compact’s lips. On top of having to accept his Old Man was right about something, George also had to cope with his chair disappearing whilst he was distracted with play on the alley: Sparky’s arrival heralded an instant resolution to the over-heating problem – the doors to the Snooker room were propped open with a fire extinguisher & by the commandeering of George’s chair as a second doorstop, & Sparky proceeded to dislodge a few ceiling tiles as well for good measure! – but presented poor Georgie with another, where to park his bum between ups! With peace restored after Wiggle gave him another chair, MiniDisk went back to continuing to make an art form of taking out the middle pin from the stack & leaving the rest standing – I think even he was getting a little tired of that trick come the finish! Sparky deemed his 4th up a ‘good’ dcuk as he narrowly missed with every ball, but Orical upgraded this to stylish, which did nothing to appease the frustrated beast. Only 1 more pin was lost, however, & as George donned his jacket once more & disappeared into the sunset with Lodge to go cause a bit more chaos on the roads, The Almonds only had 10 pins to chase.
Act 3 – Jocky & Not~AndyManCompact was already feeling no pain at this point, the beers going down well – 1 per pair he reckoned – & he asked The Boys to be on standby for calling an ambulance if he got past 5! Jocky had a bit of a ‘mare on the alley, but still managed to get into double figures, just, finishing on 10. With Barnesy, Chuckles, Hammer, Craptain, SavvyDisk, Turk & AndyMan all AWOL this week, VC Compact drafted in one of our Every Now & Thens – Andy2. Following Not~AndyMan’s total of 28, our Vice Craptain was forgiven for wilfully ignoring The List & thunking in a quite brilliant fashion. Our 3rd pair held their men to all even on the game, so we were still 10 down as we sped through the intermission & straight into Part 2.
Act 4 – Wiggle & Compact – who TURNED THE GAME AROUND!With the echo of last week’s 6 still reverberating round her nervous system, it was a mightily relieved Wiggle who collapsed back into her seat after scoring 3 on her first up – albeit nursing a sore finger after catching her nail on the last ball. With The Boys mocking her about her poor broken nail, Wiggle tried to shut them up by clarifying that she hadn’t, in actual fact, broken a nail, but peeled the skin back & made it sore. That announcement had a better effect than she could have hoped for, although it took her a while to catch on why… poor innocent creature. Following a dcuk on her 2nd up, Wiggle scored a brilliant 8 on her 3rd – earning herself a ‘get off’ after missing the last pin with the 3rd ball, which admittedly looked suspiciously like it went down the gully! – & finished up on 17 this week, even pulling back 9 pins into the bargain. Compact, doing quite a bit of 1-ball skittling, was the only Almond to avoid a dcuk this week, but couldn’t get his stroke of the Pussy due to her being AWOL. His steady scoring got him 22 on the board & 12 pins in front of his oppo, & he led the assembly into a fine cacophony of WPTP as we saw our 21-pin lead chalked up on the board!
Act 5 – Orical & peRVWith Compact going to the bar & buying up an abundance of snacks for everyone, there was quite a party atmosphere going by now. It wasn’t terribly helpful of Compact to keep asking Orical & peRV if they wanted a crisp as they were about to throw a ball, but it wasn’t the worst of it – Orical was completely upstaged by a pair of trainers! It wasn’t that his performance was that bad – he put 15 into the pot – it was the fact that an attack of the helpless giggles consumed both him & Sparky, rendering his concentration on the task in hand useless. peRV’s new trainers had caused him to be unstable on his feet when he was stood at the backboard, which was a little surprising to anyone looking at the size of them – he wouldn’t have moved in a gale force wind you’d have thought. The Boys decided that the trainers were at least 2 sizes too big, & Taffy reckoned he’d left the paper packing in the front of them, which was causing the instability. Is it irony that his balls fell as short of wood on his first up as his toes did the tips of his trainers? I know they say men compensate for the size of their dciks by buying big cars, does that apply to footwear also? Trying to grasp some respite from the mauling he was getting, peRV, in his defence, said that at least he’d burned the last pair of trainers they had mocked him about, the legendary rubber daps: one comment was just about discernible from the paroxysms of laughter that little statement induced – & that was that The Boys reckoned those babies were still out there burning somewhere! As tears were dried from many an eye, there was one last little bitter pill for peRV to swallow – being denied a 30. He’d had more than The Chris of Death thrown at him, but he came close with 29 & still had the consolation prize of top score to enjoy. Now 26 pins up on the game, we moved towards the Final Act.
Act 6 – aRCe & Sparky Relatively confident of a win, The Boys nonetheless resisted any mention of dcik sucking until nearly the last. Instead they kept themselves distracted with talk of new team shirts, emblazoned with amazing new legends, which they got busy dreaming up. Apparently instead of our Almond monikers, each shirt should dictate our role within the team. I fear for Hammer. aRCe was going great guns until his Her Indoors ruined his concentration by inconsiderately texting whilst he was on the alley: we were all frightfully amused as his phone progressively shrieked “message” at him louder & louder. And even more frightfully amused when he tucked himself into the corner after his ups muttering “excuse me whilst I whip this out” as he rummaged about in his pocket… & only the tiniest bit disappointed when he got his mobile out! He put a Sweet 16 on the board though, & Sparky helped hold us steady, despite succumbing to a dcuk on his 4th up, with his 23. And so the curtain came down & we took our bows over our penultimate match win by 26 pins, & proved to ourselves that even when we get abandoned by those who book holidays that coincide with the end of season matches we can still come out triumphant.
The Final Curtain Our last game will be played on our home alley, but we’ll be the visitors! It takes place on Wednesday 23rd April against the Filton Wanderers. I lost track of whether we are bringing food or not to this last game: it started out we were all contributing snacks, but then there was talk of Compact cooking curry & roast spuds, & someone else bringing naan bread & rice… I guess someone needs to check!
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