Bingo and the Bowling Alley

You heard it right! Bingo went bowling. Eliot was having his 34th birthday and his wife threw him a party at the local bowling alley. I had the bright idea to bring Bingo. I did ask beforehand (Fred said, No, this is not a good idea. Eliot said, Why not?) I went with the birthday boy's answer. I mean, he is the birthday boy, right? Why deny him?

Uh, bowling, with a dog who goes from 0 to 100 on the excitement scale to a PARTY. Bowling, where all they do is throw big BALLS around. What was I thinking?

Bingo was great on the walk in. The only problem was that none of Eliot's friends were familiar with service animals and they all fell in love and wanted to pet Bingo. So I felt like the party pariah by saying, "No, I'm sorry. You can't pet him. He's working." They were super nice about it, but still, Cheryl = party fun killer. Plus, you can't bowl when you have a guide dog. I wasn't thinking about that. Although, technically, he is on the LEFT side, and I bowl on my right side, so I could bowl with him. I think the bowling people might have objected to that though.

The other thing that happens at birthday parties that I had completely forgotten about was effusive greetings, back slapping, huge hugs and high fives. Each one was watched eagerly by Bingo and in his tiny labrador mind they all heralded mammoth, spectacular ecstasy just moments away. He vibrated.

I sat at the table and had Bingo lay down. What struck me immediately was this bowling alley had the cleanest floors in the nation. I swear that you literally could eat off this floor. There was not one crumb on it. I know this because Bingo looked and was unable to find one. NOT ONE. I think that is what saved the evening. He was so disheartened by the fact the there were no crumbs and that I was sitting and no super ecstatic revelatory experience was in the offing for him that he just gave up and lay down. He was a good boy, a really good boy for two hours.

[ A photo of CD, Tracy and Chad at a table with Bingo on the floor in a down stay. Notice he is not snuffling around for food crumbs! Bingo did really like Chad's feet and whenever Chad was at the table with us, he would try to lick Chad's toes. Tracy said it was because Chad had unusally smelly feet. I told Chad it was because Bingo loved him.]

He even got to experience Galactic Bowling where the lights go out, loud disco music comes on and strobe lights, multicolored lights start to wink on and off. It makes for quite an experience. Bingo, the disco doggie.

We did have one close call though. Fred finally came over to let me bowl a couple of times and he took off his shoes. He wasn't paying attention and one of the bowling managers came over and gave Fred a stern look and pointed down at Bingo.

"He's chewing on the shoes!"

Fred said, "Oh." And then reached over to take the massively abused shoe (abused by other bowlers, not by Bingo) out of Bingo's mouth. "Right." We decided that I should walk out with Bingo first and Fred should return the shoes. There were no visible teeth marks. 8-)