After spending a few minutes wondering if they’d made some horrible mistake about playing at home Tuesday 26/9, because the alley resembled the Marie Celeste at 8pm, Orical & Wiggle breathed a sigh of relief as the Westsports Captain staked out his territory by spilling beer and loosed his balls.  Unfortunately that relief was to be short-lived for Wiggle, who spent most of the evening knowing she’d made some horrible mistake….

Stalling for time to allow peRV to finish performing his dramatic piece about how he can manage to get the pins out all on his little own, although I think he needs to work on the sarcastic tone to prevent alienating his audience, and Compact time to turn up with the balls, Craptain had plenty of time to consider who to play first this week.  In theory anyway….  Turk was hanging from sleep deprivation following a late Monday night out and lots of free drink, so he pleaded to be allowed to play first so that he could go home as soon as, and if aRCee had been a bit more prompt he could have gone on first pair too, as he couldn’t wait to leave either, but as luck would have it he arrived minutes too late & Wiggle had been ‘carefully selected’ to pair Turk.

Now, just to set the scene, Compact was a no-show.  Nothing wrong with that per se, but in view of the fact that he is the ‘(Not So) Young Pretender’ to Craptaincy he may well have sabotaged his ambitions by failing to arrange for the balls to be delivered for play in his absence.  Because this sort of thoughtless action permeates through the soul of those with a highly developed psyche, wreaking more damage than that seen with the naked eye watching a skittles game.  And is not advisable when one of those soul’s has access to a computer & a special MR licence…  His organisational skills are a shambles and dedication to the team shocking – there we were abandoned and thrown into disarray whilst he was off on a jolly, wining and dining Mrs Ducklas on a romantic night out in Cardiff.  It turned out to be a bit of a blessing really when this event provoked ponderings over how their evening was going and what they might be eating (general consensus was Compact was having Welsh Rarebit), as attention was diverted from how badly the game was going. 

But I digress.  Turk started out OK before tiredness took over, and it was touch and go whether he’d make it to the end of his 6 ups without falling asleep.  And for Wiggle?  Well, for a very worrying moment it looked like she was going to suffer from the Ducklas affliction of the ignominious six ducks.  It was the balls, bad karma you see  – the Westsports’ were larger and shinier, but not so heavy as ours, and the whole ‘feel’ was off.  Honest.  Although it was too little too late, Barnesy & Chuckle1’s late arrival after detouring to pick up the Almonds’ balls was very much appreciated, and saved Wiggle going down in legend with Compact.  Trying to offer hope where there was none, Barnesy encouraged by asserting she was sure Wiggle would get a spare on her last up.  Wiggle thought it more likely she would suffer from despair, but there was a little ray of the haziest sunshine when she finished with a 6.

Turk’s 12 and Wiggle’s 8 meant that we dropped 38 pins on the first pair… and thanks to Wiggle’s opposite number being a bar steward and scoring 34, it also meant that she was responsible for dropping the highest number of pins on the night – 26 of the little beauties, all by herself!  Undeterred, Craptain played aRCee with Barnesy next, neither of who could do much to halt the steady and relentless superiority Westsports mashed in the Almonds faces.

Now, it takes a very special person to take the heat & shame away from a fellow player, but Barnesy stood right up to the line.  And not only did she deliver 5 ducks to eclipse Wiggle’s 4, but she did it with much greater style and humour!   There were various reasons that Barnesy’s luck was in short supply:  first off she was dropping her balls too early; secondly her arm got lost at the airport and didn’t board the right plane, (although, as she pointed out in teaching assistant speak, “nobody has never said anything about my arm going on a plane before”); then it turns out where she’s been going wrong all these years is not knowing where she’s going wrong…which, according to peRV, is the problem.  She did happily discover though, by accident, that dispensing with her little run up resulted in better scoring – leaving it out earned her a stonking 2 on her last up, whereby she triumphantly faced her team and uttered those rallying words, “I told you I wouldn’t let you down lads!”.  Go Barnesy!! 

Sparky had his own theory about why the women weren’t playing so well:  nothing to do with pussy strokes, (and he didn’t enlighten us as to whether this blinding revelation came to him in bed), all to do with the fact that there are only 90 days until Christmas.  We were all thrilled to learn that 90 days from that Tuesday it would be Boxing Day, and that maybe Craptain had better start dropping the women for matches now as they get so stressed out at this time of year…  aRCee, who was quietly getting on with putting 17 on the board, muttered something about it being boxing day in a minute if Sparky didn’t shut up.  Unabashed, Sparky further elaborated on his theories for the Almonds’ low scores by saying that in his opinion it was clear Compact had ridden some of the Almonds too hard over the summer, causing severe burn out; and that we were fast becoming the Chelsea of the skittles league…  I don’t get it, but it got a big laugh so it’s in!!

With Westsports’ lead increased to 64, & trying to make Barnesy feel better about her ducks by saying she’d taken the pressure off the rest of the team, Mini Chuck & peRV got stuck into seeing what damage they could do when our stunned Craptain still managed to think straight enough to chalk up more names.  They pulled back an amazing 36 pins with their scores of 20 & 26 respectively, all (ish) credit to them, but it did help that the opposition played their own Wiggle & Barnesy, who scored a mirrored 8 & 2!!

Now only 28 pins down on the game, the fighting spirit came back and Jocky & Orical were tasked with keeping up the momentum.  This they did, with Jocky hitting a steady 19 and Orical pulling out all the stops to bring home 32, top score and the pinnacle of success – being invited to ‘stroke Pussy’.  Can we please be clear of the rules regarding that activity please?  It’s very wrong for Wiggle to come under attack after such an instruction, even if she is under contract to the assailant.  We’ll put it down to him getting over excited this once… just because Jocky said Wiggle had set Orical free from the worry about beating her score and he could therefore lose his inhibitions, didn’t mean he could take liberties.  It’s not funny, it’s not clever, and neither was it his birthday.

And don’t you just have to love our Craptain for the sensitive way he handles delicate issues?  He really spared Wiggle’s feelings when he announced “that’s your score out of the way” with some relish after Orical’s opening 8.  You could tell he wanted to rub his hands together and laugh raucously as well, but he managed to restrain himself.  Just.  And when Orical scored 7 from his 2^nd up, Craptain even managed to stay completely silent – the halo skewed a little by the smirk maybe?  Sparky was getting a little over-excited at this point, yelling “lovely little tickle off that last ball” whilst chuckling devilishly, although it was unclear whether he was admiring Orical’s skittles or encouraging misuse of the Pussy.  He had a lot of trouble keeping his hands to himself during his own ups later in the match, sneaking an illegal Pussy ‘tickle after seeing his own hopes of a bone fide one disappear after a duck – perhaps a new poll on the web site should be “Should we charge a fine for illicit fingering of the Pussy”?  Whilst the Almonds may well be a crap skittles team, they come out tops for an awesome website! 

Jocky & Orical pulled us back 11 more pins to leave everything to play for and 17 to chase as Hammer & Sparky stepped up to put their skittling prowess where their mouths were.  Hammer had been quieter than usual, although he couldn’t quite contain himself when Wiggle, feeling guilt-tripped into it, got her purse out to pay her own duck fine and he asked if she had enough in there.  Cutting. He’s apt to come out with some rubbish as well – no change there then – asking why there were always excuses / reasons when Wiggle played badly, but when he does it’s just because he’s crap.  What is his point?  Maybe that could be another poll, what is the point of Hammer?

Wiggle recognises her own flaws & limitations and is first to hold her hands up when she lets the side down, never once considering herself too good to play for the Almonds…  even those who take things seriously get ducks, & Hammer’s inability to avoid one meant his score of 25 wasn’t all that great for a self-professed ‘expert’.  Sparky experimented with a couple of ducks on his way to scoring 17, claiming one of those was of the ‘superior’ variety because he didn’t take out any pins at all.  Hammer was straight in with the sting, pointing out that Wiggle had got one of those too….  she would have taken umbrage but for the fact that, to be fair, she’d gotten so many ducks there weren’t many varieties she hadn’t got.

Despite our Craptain looking after our best interests by putting up the wrong totals to the detriment of Westsports, Hammer admitted that he & Sparky had failed to keep the momentum going and were responsible for our comeback stumbling & setting us back by 6 pins, so that ‘ankers Craptain & Chuckle1 had more of a mountain to climb than they wanted with pulling back 23 pins + to win.  They did manage to pull pins, 5 to be exact, which meant that we were this week’s losers by 18.  It was a creaking door of a finish, starting with it being wide open to take the game (Gospel according to peRV) with varying gusts of wind that made it flap about indiscriminately but none strong enough to blow it as wide open as required, and ending with it being slammed shut – with a chair propped up against it for good measure, (Gospel, V2).

If anyone wants a laugh, and playing for our team there is the need, apparently you’ll find one if you ‘Google’ “Bob Vickery” – depends how funny you find gay erotic porn sites!  Even our Sticker-Up is turning into a comedienne, asking how she could get a rise out of the Almonds:  one suggestion would be to shout “you lot suck” when we lose, or, as Orical suggested, maybe she should stick up for another team…

Our next battle commences at 8pm, or as soon after that as we amble in and can be arsed to play, on Tuesday 2/10 on our Home alley against Stokers.