Playing Bingo is a process, not unlike a carpenter, or dentist, or even a physicians! Bingo players need to have their equipment, and it must be color coordinated! Bingo players also are like ballplayers, filled with superstition and ritual. Bingo players are like the nuns in a church during a Mass, very strict and devoted.
As the night began, I was given charge of selling the bingo books, the books have about 20 sheets of bingo cards that like I said yesterday: sell for $20 a book. I manned my post and waited for the first of my many customers.
The first lady announced herself by demonstrating her smoker’s cough. Looking into my eyes, her eagerness apparent, said: “I’ll take two. One from this pile and one from that pile.” In her hands is a knitted bag with slots to hold about 5 or 6 different color bottles of a marker ink to play her games. She carried chips, and set up at a particular spot in the room. She was uninterested in anybody or anything else but her mission to win.
Another woman comes to me, and asked: “Do you have any progressives?” In my panic of not knowing what the hell she is talking about, I point her to another person, my finger pointing like a roadside arrow, flashing to the right, my tongue numb. (Do I have any progressives? No ma’am, I’m very blasé.)
I scanned the room as it filled, people were spreading out the cards and setting up the bottles, with one bottle in their hand, ready and poised to mark as the numbers were called. The place was getting crowded quickly and suddenly, as quiet as a church, as the first number of many is called out in a very long night.
Heads are all bent over their playing area, their arenas of chance. Brows knitted they concentrated over the many cards spread out, like what in front of them was a job application or their taxes, or some obscure story they must to read. They all play their games a certain way, do certain things to bring them luck, believe in something maybe supernatural or at the least, an unknown force of destiny!
As I chatted with my buddy Jim to pass the time away, TLW (The Little Woman) is waving to me silently, but frantically, like I was on fire, trying to fan the flames. It is her “You are doing something wrong” wave which differs from her “I cooked this too long” wave, or “the baby needs to be changed wave.” Just so you know, TLW knows how to wave. I look at her, my heart in my mouth, my tongue once again, numb and try to figure out what is wrong.
She whispers: “You are talking, you are distracting the ladies over there, about 200 yards away!”
“Is it alright if I breathe?”
“Will you be making any rasping or gurgling sounds, or any kinds of sound waves that emanate from you oral cavity, or for that matter any cavity that you so possess?”
“Well I can’t guarantee the last part at my age, but I will try to control the first part. TLW shakes her head: “no” and walks away. Jim and I just shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes. These ladies don’t mess around!
I guess what I’m saying is the whole idea of bingo takes on a religious connotation is that there is much devotion and reverence to the game. I can’t understand it, since like fishing, there is no challenge, just luck, and sometimes, or most times it can be lousy!
The people seemed to be enjoying this night out. There is camaraderie amongst the players, and a relationship with the staff that operates and controls the games. It is their social life, their time. They don’t seem like readers or theater goers, or even movie viewers. Just Bingo and maybe TV.
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