Bowlmore Lanes, w 44th St.

Sorry, Bowlero. It’s called that now.

Hey man, it’s party time and the kids have spring break because God forbid there be two months in a row where there isn’t a week off so everyone can recover from all those fractions or whatever… And it’s just a matter of time until the wheel of whaddayawannado lands on mother-flipping bowling.

The kids are ten now, and while the Bowlmore was a perfect party gathering when they were younger (Indoors, and ya get a waitress. Chicken fingers, beer. Done and done.) I could tell that they had finally registered a fact of adult life:

Most people bowl ironically. It’s something to do that isn’t technically sitting.

You can be the world’s worse bowler and still take comfort in the fact that well, I’m a homeowner and I have a job. You can be the world’s best bowler and most people might not tell you to go fuck yourself, but tomorrow is promised to no one. It’s harmless fun and something to do while drinking in a strange pair of shoes… and that’s when it finally, really hit me.

Bowling shoes are a bullshit scam. 

Everyone has mumbled this to themselves at one time or another surely, but I did not know that today was going to be a breaking point for me. 

There’s the wall of shoes – $8 a person for the day. You tell the woman behind the counter your size — mine were too small this time out but I didn’t want to make it a whole thing, so I sucked it up. I wanted to ask the person behind the desk what she thought of the situation, but she seemed to be all business.

There were five in our group, and they made $45 off us just for the shoes which was almost the bar bill. 

I wondered aloud what the deal actually was with bowling shoes and the other adults speculated that it was not to damage the floor with our “street shoes.” As if my Pumas are on public assistance, courting danger out there on the mean streets. We all tried to help, but they have to want to be helped. I wondered if I could bowl in my socks.

At that very moment, it was already one of the kids turn to bowl. His technique was to toss the ball around nose height and let it thunderously crash to the floor before eventually beginning it’s lava-like roll down the alley toward the indifferent seeming pins.

And I thought, “that floor looks like it can take a beating. Are my shoes really a threat to the sanctity of the flooring?” 

I tried not to think about the finger holes, germs and all that goes with that situation as I slung my balls down the lane trying to at least beat the kids’ scores.

I had not really had lunch and that second beer must have gone to my head. Around the end of the game, I was contemplating the kind of forced perspective of the bowling lane — ya know, how it looks like the bowling pins are far away and might be as tall as a person? 

Well, once I had my bowling shoes off I decided to test my theory that they are actually close and quite small, and ran down the aisle toward the pins in just my socks like Alice in a working class wonderland. Halfway down I stopped and turned toward my posse and saw the manager of the place starting walk toward me. I quickly realized what a jack ass I was about to look like, as a kid half my age chastised me for acting like a goddamn asshole in front of my own child.

I decided to distract him.

“So dude, what’s the deal with bowling shoes anyway? Why do people have to wear them?”

He had an answer.

He had the goddamn answer.

It’s so bowlers can slide. On the floor. You’re supposed to slide and glide around while you roll the ball in between tucking into platefuls of nachos and wings.

“In street shoes,” there’s that word again. The struggle is real. “People could trip, not to mention make the floor dirty from the outside.”

I filed that under, “Whatever Dude.” Still, they should be optional. Especially for little kids. Unless they are thinking of turning pro, of course. And why aren’t they worried about the rest of the floors? Nice department stores have clean floors and I wear my “outside shoes,” (as they prefer to be called, thank you very much) in there all the time.  

What if there were “museum shoes,” you had to change into to you wouldn’t sully the marble floors? Then we could all glide up to the statues of naked guys with the tiny pee-pees.

I didn’t say any of that, instead, I nodded, satisfied and we were all relieved that I didn’t get us thrown out of the bowling alley.