Strike Zone.

I have almost 16 days left until my last Master's class is over. 16 long, painful days. And this class couldn't have been any more worse a class than it is. We have been assigned a partner for the last and final project and it requires a lot of email correspondence, online chatting and what have you. Well my partner, Shelley, a 50 something year-old lady who lives in Northern Arizona and sounds like a New Yorker, is nuts. She does not have the internet at her house so she has to go to the library to rent a laptop. So I, like an amazing partner, suggest that we exchange phone numbers so we can schedule times to do our assigned online chats  then I find out that is going to be next to impossible, so I email our professor asking if we can do the whole thing over the phone, which she has no problem with. Shelley is impossible to talk to over the phone. She is a very nice lady, don't get me wrong, but seriously talks non-stop and doesn't understand that this assignment can be easily finished within an hour and insists we go through every step. Needless to say I have corresponded with her for over 7 hours in the past 3 days. Luckily we are done... or so I hope.

I forgot to mention I am on a bowling league. Yes, yes, I know the majority of you are jealous, but I have been bowling with some of the guys from the golf course on Monday nights. Technically this was only my second time but we already got our official collared shirts in bright yellow (I won't even tell you our team name.... I had nothing to do with it) and at the end we get out own custom fit bowling ball... OUR OWN BOWLING BALL! Awesome.

I was running late today due to work and homework and got to the lane just in the nick of time. I run in and everyone is telling me to go get my shoes but I know I have been holding everyone up (also the team we were bowling against) so I say "Screw shoes!!" and I grab a ball and head toward the lane.

This is where things got messy.

You see, I was wearing my new red, crochet TOMS and they are just the tiniest bit slick. Also I just grabbed the first ball I saw and it happened to be a 13pounder. Usually more that my little feeble hands can, well, handle.

I yank the ball from the shelf and start aiming toward the center pin when my shoes slide right over the fault line and I do not stop slipping, tripping, or stumbling until about 1/3 of the way down the alley. Some how I managed to grab onto the grey bumper thing on the side and hole on for dear life. I was practically a human bowling ball. Of course as I turn to face the humiliation... everyone in the whole place was clapping for they had seen everything. All I did was curtsey... I mean, what else can you do?

So this isn't my first time bowling and I am actually pretty average. Sometimes I am totally awesome, like later in the evening but usually average. I also no the rules of courtesy on the lanes, as in, you do not bowl when the lanes on either side of you are bowling.. but that's it... just those either sides. Well 'apparently' I was bowling when this guy THREE LANES AWAY was also trying to go and he had had enough.

So I am sitting, cheering on my pathetic little team, having a great time, when all of the sudden this ogre of a man (literally twice my size and my age for that matter) comes bounding over, puts his hands on his knees and gets all up in my face and then shouts at me "PLEASE stay to the RIGHT when I and TRYING to BOWL, THANKS!!!" And then he just stormed off.

All I could do was laugh because I had no idea what he was talking about nor had I been given any warning, just an immediate blow up. Well my heart is racing because I want to punch this lunatic in the face but I know he could eat me for  breakfast so I continue to sit and think about all the things I should have said and the best I came up with was "I don't know why you you are thanking me because now I am not going to stop." If only I had ben that cool.

Regardless I gave him a freaking 30 foot radius for the rest of the night. Everyone was in shock and the team he was playing against could not believe it but they ending up thanking me later because I guess I got in his head and he lost. He did come over to us as my team was leaving an apologized but I told him "I hope you know I was not trying to sabotage your game, I understand the rules and thought I was abiding by them but a simple warning would have been better than screaming in my face. That was uncalled for." And the guys on my team were defending us saying it was our first league and we are just trying to have fun but we are respectful and you have no right to yell at our teammate. I felt defended.

Why do these crazy people feel the need to take their problems out on me? One of the guys from our other team said the man obviously saw that I was having a rough day from the beginning... but apparently not rough enough. Whatever, he was really just jealous because of my major skills

Boom. STRIKE.... posted.