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As Orical and I enjoyed a conversation with The Boy prior to leaving home, we arrived after play had started on Alley 3 in our match against the Chairmans at the BAWA Club, Thursday 4/1.
With the Almonds sat in pow-wow formation, and only those sat in direct line with the alley able to see what was going on, we had to amuse ourselves somehow and on this particular evening it was to be to the detriment of Pete “The Poof” Bowers, who had to be reprimanded by his own son for sitting all twee with his hand on his knee… striking up a more manly pose, Chuckle 1 disabused us of the misconception that Craptain hadn’t chosen to shake things up by pairing him with Lodge to play first, it was a case of most of us being late and there not being any choice. Ooooooh, get Her! That bitchy comment made us contrite – not!! After that, it was open season on The Only Gay in the Almonds.
Chuckle 1 set himself a low personal standard with his first up and then consistently failed to achieve it with the next 5: he finished on barely-a-leg-to- stand-on 11, which Lodge equalled, obviously not wanting to incur the former ‘ankers wrath. Down by 13 at the start, it was to be mainly uphill from there. Hammer predicted Wiggle, who was chosen to play next with Barnesy Junior, would equal Chuckle 1’s score in her first 3 ups, following a good start. Needless to say this jinxed Wiggle into a duck 3rd up, but, despite having to hit pins that looked more like matchsticks, she rallied and finished on 21, which was only 1 less than the first pair's scores put together.
With a WPTP ringing in their ears, Barnesy Junior having bounced his way to 22 – which did equal the score of the first pair put together – Wiggle & BJ were pleased to have pulled as many pins as the first pair scored, and the most to be pulled on a pair all night, to put us 9 in front one third into the game as Compact & Orical took over the reins.
Playing twice in one week caused havoc with the washing cycle of team shirts: some chose to air and wear; some flouted the rules and wore civvies; one masqueraded as his own son, Minidisc - but he fooled nobody as he could neither pull off the floppy fringe look nor his jeans far enough to expose his underpants. Compact was also missing his backbone, or something like that, and limped his way to a 9. Orical had to be a smart-ass and score 23, and I almost demanded a recount when they got such an enthusiastic WPTP for pulling 1 measly pin until I realised the cheering was orchestrated by Compact and let him enjoy his hollow moment. Lest Chuckle 1 feel like the limelight wasn’t still shining on him, Hammer pointed out that the Chairmans had a PB playing for them too, and that he had played crap as well.
Hammer was also banging on about making his debut for the Almonds in the Knockout Cup, suffering from delusions of adequacy in assuming he’d be selected to play – we were all willing Turk to turn up, but that proved to be a waste of time. As did hoping Jocky & aRCe would continue to pull pins against the Chairmans.
Jocky was playing up on the chair front again. Not content with stealing Wiggle’s seat on Tuesday, he had turned up and started rearranging the furniture straight away Thursday, quite cheerfully working his way towards taking the best seat in the house, previously inhabited by aRCe. Maybe if he’d scored better having been paired up with aRCe he’d have been less aggressive in his takeover, but Jocky, with the utmost gratitude from Compact, could only put 7 on the board and he needed to assert his authority elsewhere obviously. aRCe fared little better, brushing away Compact’s encouraging instructions for optimum success with an ungrateful “eff off” to put the 3rd 11 of the night on the board. This meant that they dropped 8 pins to leave us only 2 in front as Craptain put our not quite ‘ankers on to play. With peRV busy texting home to tell them he was an ‘anker, Hammer & Sparky got on with the job in hand – pulling us back some pins to ensure victory and a place in the next round. Hammer put 25 on the board, disappointed not to be able to point out to Chuckle 1 after each up how much better he’d played than him, as C1 left early with Barnesy for a lovers tryst. Sparky scored 20, they pulled 17 pins back, so that we were a healthy 19 in front as peRV & Craptain brought up the rear. There was a lot of talk about cricket, provoked presumably because of the parallels with our own poorly scoring game, during which peRV was likened to Trescothick. Now I thought this was a village in Cornwall, but apparently it’s a cricketer for whom peRV is the skittling equivalent. I can’t be sure, as with so much horseshit being flung about it’s a wonder we didn’t have rhubarb growing through the floor, but I don’t think it was meant as a compliment. Compact & Jocky were positively orgasmic over the fact that peRV looked well on his way to a Slimbridge, and only slightly disappointed that he managed to actually score 5. Following 3 ducks and 2 low scoring ups, Compact helpfully pointed out to peRV that he could afford to get a duck without affecting the game on his last up, as Reg had put in a good Craptain’s innings. There was a cacophony of unsporting gloating when peRV bowed out with a 4th duck on that last up, but at least he has ensured he will never be chosen to play ‘anker again! Earning himself the title of ‘Jammiest Craptain’ the Almonds have ever had having taken top score with his 26, and musing over the fact that he used to be crap until he was voted in as Craptain!, The Boys became convinced that Reg had cancelled the house extension Cath wanted and put in a skittle alley instead, to practise on 5 nights a week… apparently they weren’t far off, Reg confirming that it was in fact the swimming pool that was kicked into touch to give him an edge in the averages. Beating the Chairmans by 15 pins, The Almonds have guaranteed themselves a quarterfinal place, date and venue to be confirmed. Our next match is on Tuesday 9/1, at home against Britannia. We should have nice clean balls to play with, Compact having been invited to spruce them up to a glossy shine with a lot of polishing, a task he seemed more than happy to comply with.
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