Bingo Bonanza

Over Memorial weekend my husband went up to my family's cottage to help my mom put in the dock, boat lifts, etc. She actually chose him over me using the excuse that his muscles were bigger. I personally think she has a new favorite and I always knew she secretly wanted a son. This again left me flying solo to battle the kid and the horse. Seeing we had an open, long weekend with no impending plans I made arrangements to go visit his parents. So it was an in-law swap.. he boarded the plane to visit my mom and I loaded the three of us in the car to go visit his parents.

It actually was a super fun weekend. Saturday night we went to a surprise birthday party for my mother-in-law and coasted into the night with a professional yodeler on a guitar. Sunday grandma called and asked if we would be up for bingo. I of course did not hesitate to say yes and my father-in-law was tasked with feeding/changing/bathing, and putting the kid to sleep for the night. We picked grandma up at 4pm in order to ensure getting three seats together at the bingo hall. Mind you bingo didn't start until 6pm! Grandma approached the car with a stylish bingo bag that held her playing money and an assortment of dobers. This quickly reminded me of the previous bingo excursion where there is a whole bingo sub-culture that exists. When we arrived at the American Legion the place was already almost filled up! We were an hour and a half early! Grandma scrambled to find us a seat and shortly after scoping it out she saw her regular crew. They flagged her over to sit but in retrospect I do not think they realized that Grandma was not rolling solo and that they had to give up three seats versus the regular reserved one seat. Grandma told us it was fine and to just set our stuff down. We did as we were told and began to place our stuff on the table. The ring leader said to me in an elevated voice, "You can't sit there, Alba always sits there, here, sit here until Grace comes. When she comes you can sit across in this seat (points diagonal where the lady she is currently playing cards with is sitting) since once we are done playing cards she (motioning to her card partner) is moving to the table behind us." I just stood their with my one dobber in hand looking at her like WTF? You want me to sit where? Grandma motioned to the seat I was instructed to first sit in. I placed my dobber in front of my temporary seat and grandma and I made our way off to buy our cards and order some food from the bar.

Upon returning to the table with my piece of lasagna and garlic bread I saw that some old lady was sitting in my temporary assigned seat but my permanently assigned seat was still taken by the card player. I approached the table not quite sure what I was supposed to do next. Mind you my mother-in-law and grandma were still getting their food and buying cards so I was left to fend for myself against these obviously territorial old school gamers. The ring leader saw me and said, "When we are done playing cards, you are going to need to sit in this seat (touching the seat next to her) until Alba shows up." Fine. I sit down and start eating. No more than two bites into my food, Alba shows up. The ring leader tells me that Alba was now there and I once again was required to move. This time I was banished to the next table over! As I sat down at this new table I was greeted with unfriendly stares. I looked down at my shirt to see if I had spilled or what the mean looks were for. I found nothing and just assumed they did not like newcomers. As I settle into my fourth new seat, Grandma returned and started to raise cane. She challenged the ring leader as to why I was banished to the next table over? A lot of banter occurred, not all that I can recall, but the next thing I know they were packing up their cards and the ring leader's card partner was evacuating my seat. Grandma motioned to me to come back to the original table and claim the chair that was rightfully mine. At this point I was feeling a bit like the bastard step child but I once again picked up my dinner, that was starting to get cold after all of these moves, and sat down next to grandma and across from Alba. Only at this point did the ring leader realize that my mother-in-law and I were with grandma. All along she though I was a stray that had just decided to sit with a bunch of old unwelcoming bitties!

Given the musical chair drama the time had flown by. Bingo was about to start and grandma had started to call out instructions to us on which game we were playing first and which color of card we were playing off of. Since my previous bingo experience I decided to upgrade to 6 cards. The numbers started to be called off when the bitching started. The ring leader started to go off on that the caller was too slow, complained too much, yada yada. She literally talked almost the entire time.

There were two breaks and during the first break grandma and I got up to go to the bathroom. She made some comment to the lady at the table that I got banished to that she could come over and play cards if she wanted. As a bit of a background when there was a break in the bingo a lot of people play the card game bingo. The lady at the other table told her they were just fine and went back to playing cards at her own table. I didn't realize the significance of this until we were in the bathroom and I made some comment to grandma that I felt like I was upsetting the balance at bingo with taking people's chairs and interrupting card games. She grunted and in her spunky way told me they were basically just old ladies that did nothing but bitch and she dared one of them to say anything to her and we were just fine and not going anywhere! I tell you what, if I were ever in a dark alley I would want grandma right there by my side. At 80+ years old she is a bruiser. We made our way back to the table after emptying our bladders and resumed play. One of the first games back the ring leader said, "Didn't he say I20 but marked I25 on the board?" Within 30 seconds people were up on their feet shouting at the caller. It was crazy! As I looked around the room I wondered if some of the people standing had walked in years! I was actually fearful for the caller. He had a lynch mob on his hands and they were not taking any prisoners. Thank God for his own life the caller corrected his mistake and we moved on. After things settled down the ring leader made a comment to Alba on how there was so much chatter in there and that all that talking was making her sick. I wanted to lean over and say, "umm bitty, you have been complaining the ENTIRE time, why don't you shut your yap and your headache would probably go away." Luckily I didn't have to because Alba said it for me. I wanted to high five her, but instead I stuck to my role of quite daughter-in-law who was just taking it all in.

We moved onto were on the 'extra' sheets that my mother-in-law and I decided to split. Well low and behold she got a BINGO! Two games later she got another BINGO! A few games after that I got a BINGO (I think only because grandma took my sheet in advance and drew a diamond on my card so I knew what to look for), a couple games later grandma said, "It's about damn time! BINGO!" And one more time my mother-in-law got her third bingo. During this entire excitement of all of our bingos grandma still managed to continually check my card. Mind you the caller was calling numbers so fast at this point that I could barely keep up, which was evident when grandma leaned over twice and with her dark blue dobber plunked down two marks on my sheet and told me I missed a couple. The couple that I missed had been called like five minutes before. I was amazed. I only hope to have her mind when I get to be her age.

At the end of the night we tallied our winnings. We split two of the bingos my mother-in-law called since they were on shared cards.. so in total I hauled home $75, she got $65, and grandma got $50. When I looked around the room I saw nothing but unfriendly stares. I decided to adopt grandma's attitude and stared right back. What was I so afraid of? A eighty year old lady beating me up outside the American Legion? They might have had sharp words but I doubted many of them could throw a punch. We made our way to Walmart where I used my winnings to buy formula and diapers for my baby. I deemed myself an official Bingo player. I again can't wait for the next time.