Bowling for Dollars.

Mickie and I rode up to Strikes Bowling Alley last week to meet up with one of my old friends from High School. Man, I have been bowling before, and I never really liked it because I can’t hold on to the bowling ball (my fingers are not strong enough) so it’s always been embarrassing to bowl with other people. When I moved to Philly I thought my bowling days were over…. Well, thanks to Strikes, now the horror can start all over.

Actually, the place was not all that bad. When you go in they have to check your ID and give you a bracelet…. It took about 3 of the guys to figure out how to do this complicated procedure of swiping your ID card and putting a paper bracelet on your arm. We ended up waiting at the front of the place for a while, when we got up to the front the kid said that it was a $20 cover, or $10 if we were students. “Two Student Tickets please!” I said, even though I have not been a student in about 2 years and Mickie had already graduated. We both produced our college id’s, paid our $10 and got in the door. (the $10 is given back to you in the form of a ticket for $10 worth of drinks)

Here are highlights

- The place is huge, there is a lot of room to walk around, but there are really no tables or chairs, so people just kinda walk around looking lost.
- There are WAY too many people working there, they looked lost as well since it didn’t seem like there was much for them to do.
- Drinks were too expensive. They have these little enclosed bar areas, I went up and ordered a Lager (for $4) walked about 2 feet to bring it back to where we were hanging out and was stopped by another kid saying “I’m sorry sir, you cant walk around with that glass” he pulled out a plastic red frat party cup and asked me to pour my beer into it. I was a little pissed at this time since we had JUST been handed the beer and if I knew that was the procedure I would have just asked for it in a plastic cup, when I poured my beer I poured it too fast and it went crazy all over the place which made me look like a idiot. I then felt bad because the kid guarding the door gave me some napkins and was REALLY nice about the whole thing…. Too nice in fact, now that I think about it, I don’t like that kid anymore.
- Bowling was actually FUN. I chose the heaviest ball I could find, ran at the alley with the ball in both hands and released it. It almost always went straight, I even got a bunch of strikes. I got second place after the first game, but I destroyed everyone in the second game. I got a few dirty looks from people in the other lanes because I was running and sliding and dancing and yelling.
- I saved a lot of money on beer since I snuck my own in. I had a few cans of PBR in my bag and poured them into my frat cup when no one was looking. Bahahahaha.
- Anyway, it was a little expensive for BOWLING…. But then again, it was fun and it didn’t break the bank. Since the place is new, everything in the place was new as well, new shoes, new balls, pool tables, even the floor looked new.

I guess I would recommend it for anyone who really loves bowling... but then again, if you really LOVE bowling I probably want nothing to do with you, I would never dream of getting between a person and their bowling.