My wife and I were able to squeeze a date night in recently. The kids had a scheduled ‘NERF GUN WAR’ night, so we did a ‘Dinner and Bowling’ night.
Here’s the problem… my wife and I are very, VERY competitive. When one wins, the other reminds them of it. And then reminds them again. And then reminds them again. And again. AND AGAIN. Example… Somewhere between 15-20 YEARS ago, my wife beat me in a fantasy football league. It just happened to be the first time she participated as well. I’m reminded of this to this day. In fact, if I’m next-to-last in fantasy football, as long as my wife is LAST, I’m OK with it.
Fast forward to the present. Game One of bowling went how most…. no, ALL bowling games between us goes… I win, I get obnoxious, she rolls her eyes, probably questioning her life choices, and so on. Game Two started off rocky… she got a few strikes, and I kept getting unmakeable splits. I dug myself a BIG hole. I couldn’t even put any sort of comeback together, as she soundly beat me by a landslide. Wasn’t even close. No excuses, she just clobbered me. And the whole time, as I ran out of frames and the outcome became more and more certain, I realized that I would be listening to the ‘the night I beat him in bowling’ story for at least the next 15-20 years. And I bet it won’t replace the ‘fantasy football’ story, it will just get added to it. There appears to be no statute of limitations as to how long these stories can linger. In fairness though, there was an incident about 15-20 years ago in which my wife slipped and fell in the CostCo parking lot, splashing butt-first into an icy puddle and clanging into the cart holder thing, and I laughed so, SO hard, that a passerby pulled over to see if I was okay (they seriously thought I might be having a seizure or some sort of episode). I tend to relive this little gem whenever I can. So, I guess we’re both guilty in this case, but unfortunately my shortcomings in bowling are the most recent and will take center stage until I kick her butt in miniature golf, or game night, or whatever silly endeavor we engage in.