Thing 134 Bingo

First and foremost, I have a complaint (when do you not have a complaint says you - that's right, I tell you what you say). No one shouts bingo. They kind of loudly say the word "check", which is crap compared to "bingo". Ask anyone. And it makes television highly misleading. I was looking forward to people getting real worked up and shouting. Doesn't happen apparently.
Except for Blond Boss. She shouts anyway, but that's because she's enthusiastic about stuff. Also, if there was money won for trying to will your numbers to come up, she'd be a millionaire. She'd have cleaned up all night. Dr Zombie is not so loud. But he is exceptionally funny. I decided I was shouting bingo if I won, and there'd be none of this murmuring shit... except I didn't win. Stupid bingo...
It's a simple game. And therefor difficult to explain. Also, I'm a bit thick at t he best of times, and as a result, this will probably not make a lot of sense. We'll give it a shot anyway eh? Okay then...

The first part of the game you're playing for a line. You card, pictured above, has the numbers 1 to 90 spread between six boxes. The announcer tells you which numbers are coming up, and you tick off the numbers on your card. What you want, for a small prize, is to get every number on a given horizontal line. Once that's won, you play for a much bigger prize. Now the announcer continues telling you what numbers are coming up, and you're trying to get all of your numbers in any given box ticked off, before someone else does.

Hey. That wasn't so bad. It kind of made sense. For someone who's just learned the rules. Too bad my iphone couldn't teach me that. I'd to get a tutorial from Dr Zombie... who got it from a nice elderly lady behind him.

That's another thing about bingo. It's not all old people at bingo. We weren't the youngest there by any stretch (mind you, we're getting on a bit, I'm not the lad I used to be.... fado fado...). I was expecting thirty or forty women, not unlike the dear old ladies in the Shreddies ads...

Pictured: Bingo sharp...

Instead what I got was about two hundred people, where the average age was about 40, or maybe just over, and there were men there too. Lots of them. Playing bingo. It's like all of my preconceived notions about bingo were just blown to tatters, and my bingo word turned upside down.

We're serious products of our generation mind you. We want it now, and we're bored of it ten seconds after we get it. We're enthusiastic right up till the time comes to expend some energy, then we're bored and require stimulants. Bingo was great craic for about an hour. Then okay for half an hour. Then boring for the last half hour. The game didn't change one iota in that time, we just got bored, because that's what we do unless you add stimulants... coffee for example... or booze... Just suggestions.

By the time we hit the last few minutes Dr Zombie was slowly trying to bludgeon himself into unconsciousness with a permanent marker... I guess things went downhill fast. And none of us won money.

Tell you what though - for a cheap, alternative to drink night out, you could do a lot worse. And if you win the money, you can blow it all on booze!