No OGs, new Gs or dirtballs allowed. No sluts, sports fanatics or dudes who love the sight of their own pectorals. Definitely no one coming straight from the gym. You clowns are not welcome at Lucky Strike Lanes (500 16th Street), at least not according to the dress code — the one displayed just inside the front door that bans "exposed intimate apparel" (sluts), "sports jerseys" (sports fanatics), "torn or soiled clothing" (dirtballs) "shirtless vests or jackets" (muscleheads), "sweats or athletic wear" (gym rats) and every variation on what thugs might wear (skull caps, baggy clothing, excessively long T-shirts, etc.). Sorry, but if you have a questionable sense of fashion, your money's no good here.
Will my money be good here? I wonder as we walk to the bowling counter on a quiet Sunday night. I'm not so sure. My cargo shorts, after all, have crusty dog-slobber stains on them, and I spot coarse chest hair poking through stress holes in my blue T-shirt. Can they see my pit stains from the walk down here? I continue to wonder as the girl hands me my size-ten shoes. What about my damp brown bangs, matted to my forehead from hours of sweating? Am I a dirtball?
Apparently not. At least, not by slower-than-syrup, Sunday-evening Lucky Strike standards. This is good news: My buddy Patrick, who's visiting from Chicago, has a bizarre hankering to hit some pins, and none of the other alleys I called have open bowling. More good news: It's service-industry night, and even though we don't have service jobs, we get the same fire-sale prices: $3 games (normally $5.95) and $1 shoes (normally $3.95). Drink specials would be a super bonus, but even at the regular price, our Guinness drafts are only $5 and cocktails $6.50, not bad for downtown.
Drinks and shoes in hand, we wander over to the faux-retro lounge seating area behind lanes 11 and 12, plop down on the long vinyl couches and stare in awe as music videos and local commercials play on the massive video wall that stretches over the pins. It's 10 p.m. — two hours till close — and we're looking to get a couple games in, so we hastily select balls from the racks and start hurtling. By the second frame, though, we're back to sweating. All weekend we've been victims of the oppressive 100-degree heat, starting with an all-Saturday swelter session at the Mile High Music Festival and continuing into a blistering afternoon playing kickball under a cloudless sky. Even just an hour ago, while sitting in my back yard eating steaks and slamming PBRs, we were hot and bothered. So to show up at an air-conditioned bar and continue soaking through our clothes is disconcerting. Time to order more cold beers.
Our waitress — sweet as she is, nameless as far as I can remember — arrives as if on cue, dressed every bit as tawdry as a trollop trying to blend in at a pimps-and-hos party. More wondering on my part: How does she meet dress code? Does she know the lace on her bra cups is exposed, that her ass is hanging out? Regardless, she happily takes and returns with our order for more drinks and four shots of well tequila ($5.50 each). We are so pleased to discover that the tequila is chilled and the rims on the glasses pre-sea-salted that, four frames later, we order another round. Then, during our second game, we play our best ball during the fifth frame and order yet another round, this time with the loser buying. But we're all winners tonight, even though the shots are bleeding our bank accounts dry. We're sweating worse than sumo wrestlers in a sauna, and none of us seems capable of breaking 100. Still, while Patrick and I are at the counter purchasing our final game, we're told that we've just been randomly selected by the computer as winners of a free, two-hour-long bowling party for up to sixteen friends.
Score!
