Death by Pink Dobber

Bingo. It's not for kids.

It was a large room divided by a dingy plexiglass wall. On one side, smoking. The other side, second-hand smoking.

We bought packets of bingo boards and colorful dobbers to blot out the numbers. We caught dirty looks as we found seats next to a wrinkled old woman. She was 120 years old and double-fisted with dobbers and 36 bingo boards.

No lie.

She will kill you.

The number caller was up in a boxed in podium left over from a 1970s skating rink DJ booth. He would lip the mic and his words sounded like Alexander Graham Bell's first phone call. He spit something through the speakers and the old woman's hands were a blur. WHAPWHAP!

Dobber ink everywhere.

"Ahaharigh, ahright, nexx game, next game... posgaestam... postetsemagp."

Did he say postage stamp?

SSHHHHHH! 

I whispered, What's postage--

"Firsnumb, firsnmber B5B5."

WHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAPWHAP!

Next game, same thing. And the one after that. We got shooshed 10 times. And then it happened. It was game four that one of us hit. BINGO!!!!!!!

A short wrinkled man (they were all wrinkled) counted out the money in his hand while a cigarette teetered between his lips. We high-fived. But it was all hate from the rest of the room. It beamed through the plexiglass wall like a smoky heatwave. The old woman looked up, then stabbed her card with pink dobbers like a contract killer. 

We took the money and ran.