BINGO!!

     Today my mom took Nancy and I to her Senior Center for lunch and a session of bingo. She introduced us around to her friends and other center members. Couple things I noticed, first, the ratio of men to woman...the good news is if your a man and survive to 80, you will have your choice of women...the bad news is there aren't many men! Second, one of the cute little old ladies Mom introduced us to was 94 years old...they had to bring her lunch to her because she couldn't walk very well, but as we were leaving I saw her getting into her car to drive home...the roads in Sun City are not safe!!
    It's hard to believe but I have only played bingo once before, and that was 20 years ago. I mean how hard could it be if every 80 year old is playing. I mean it's not like a full contact sport. So, I got in line to buy my cards (following close behind my mother) and decided to get 2 packets for both Nancy and I ($30), next we paid to join the super number group ($4), and then paid extra for the last daily game ($4...which seemed to be different from the rest of the games???). I had no idea what I was doing and must have appeared confused to all my new Senior friends...thankfully one of my mother's friends, Angie, designated herself as my instructor of all things bingo. When we originally bought our packets I thought when they said 2 packets it meant 2 boards for each game...Wrong...each packet has a game board with 6 games per, so now I was going to try to dab 12 boards at once, yikes! What seemed easy going in was now getting a little more complex. Bingo is chaos! Let me repeat, Bingo is chaos!!They call a number and draw a number (that appears on a overhead screen) almost simultaneously, these are 2 separate numbers. I was new to the game so had a hard time just staying up with the numbers announced...I had no chance of working ahead with the newly drawn number...I mean this is hard, it is the only place where 80 year olds with experience can thrash someone much younger. I was sweating and dabbing and sweating and dabbing and had no clue if I was about to win because I could barely stay up with my furious dabbing. So we get to the second to the last game which was a $50 prize and included the the wild card number payoff, it was a 9 block game which means you need to get 3 rows of 3 to line up on each other anywhere on the card , so I'm sweating and dabbing and dabbing and sweating while Angie is diligently checking over my shoulder....she leans closer and yells BINGO, it yours it yours, you got Bingo!!! Yahoo a winner...I have to admit if left to my own devices I was so busy dabbing I had no idea I'd won. I was actually the big winner of the day $155...no talent, no plan just luck...Can't wait till I'm 80 so I can get better at this.