We’d been told the kitchen was closed.  Nachos, however, were vital.  We sent Milton up again, telling him to ask nicer.  He got the nachos.

This was the commencement of UConn’s Spring Intramural Bowling League.  A group of roughly fifty students, mostly boys, who get together on Monday nights and bowl.  There are teams of four and they compete for the championship.

My team consists of Milton, Clide, Rob, and myself, Wendell.  These are our bowling names, except for Rob, who didn’t want a bowling name.  We were originally a team of three, but Rob didn’t have a team, so we invited him.  Rob is a large, polite freshman.  When he bowls his butt crack pops out.  We think it’s cute.

This is also the first team I’ve been on since high school.  I wrestled, and had a like/hate relationship with the sport.  Keeping my weight down was annoying, and so was the absurd amount of stress I felt each match.  I was unsure why I was subjecting myself to such misery.  Because it’s good for me?  Because it’ll toughen me up?  No doubt, it toughened me up, and that’s good, but it sucked.  It felt good to win matches, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.  I questioned being on the team and relayed these thoughts to my coach.  He’d look at me, puzzled, tell me I was a little too philosophical for my own good, and then, “Keep running, big match next week.”  Hm.  I tried to quit once, even wrote up a brief essay describing my reasons for quitting.  Coach said he’d never seen anything quite like it.  I ended up not quitting.  The point, however, is that bowling makes sense.  It’s not physically demanding, but it’s fun.  I sit on swivel chairs and roll balls.  Roll balls sounds silly.

My entrance into bowling culture is a rite.  A motion towards something dependable.  You sit, you stand, you bowl.  The pins are crashing.  The nacho cheese is clumping.  It’s a set time every week for the boys.  Milton, Clide, and I were always together last year.  We liked wearing semi-tight pants and being raucous at parties.  But as our schedules have intensified, boy time has vanished.  I’m busy, they’re busy.  A set hang out time allows us to hang out.  Something to look forward to each week.  Some nachos, some bowling, it’s good.

Intense rivalries will probably develop in the coming weeks.  There’s a group of kids whose knees I’d already love to snap.  Updates on this soon.

-Wendell Martinez