Brother, Can You Spare a Strike?

Okay, so who knew when the weekend began it would becoming a weekend filled with BOWLING? And who knew that the bowling-filled weekend would end in me SUCKING at bowling? Alas, my highest score was 94, but I averaged a lowly 65 in the other five games. I’m a horrible bowler. It didn’t used to be that way – after that bowling class I took for phys ed in college I averaged 125+. Those days are long over.

So there are many stories to tell from the weekend. We’ll start with this: The Bourne Identity rocked. And I’m in love with Matt Damon, but that comes as no surprise to most of you. And it was a happy surprise to find my other fake boyfriend Clive Owen was in the movie! Nice eye candy in this movie, if I do say so myself.

As for my other stories, they mainly revolve around a visitor Ace had this weekend.

A friend of his came into town for a couple days to visit with Ace (we’ll call her Erin). But she told Ace up front that she wanted to meet up with her ex-boyfriend in the city for lunch (we’ll call him Keith). Ace begged me to come, and I acquiesced after much badgering. So Saturday morning we boarded a bus for NYC and I quickly realized that the lunch date had never been finalized with Keith. We’re halfway there and Keith calls and says he can’t meet us til four p.m. Erin tells her ex that he needs to try to meet us earlier as “they (that being Ace and me) are holding me to just lunch.” We get to the city and have lunch at Virgil’s, my favorite BBQ place in the theater district. As we finish lunch, Keith calls and claims he still can’t meet us til four p.m. because he has to pick up his dog at the vet. At this point Ace says to me, “Sounds like the man doesn’t want to see her, but that’s just me.” To be kind, I suggested we head back to Port Authority and go bowling to kill time until Keith can meet up with us. She likes the idea, and Keith agrees to find us. THREE GAMES LATER and he comes rolling in just as Erin is bowling the last frame of the third game. Frankly, he didn’t live up to the hype. And he was so rude he was NOT worth the wait (I thought he’d be made of gold from the way Erin was talking about him).

By now it’s almost five o’clock, and Ace and I decide to go back to NJ. Erin decided to stay in the city with Keith for a couple of hours, so we gave her a bus schedule and my telephone number and told her to come back to my house, where Ace would be hanging out. She agreed, and Ace told her to “be responsible and don’t stay out too late – come back around eight.”

Ace and I catch the bus and go back to my place. We joyfully put in a Buffy DVD and spend the next few hours talking Buffy and a little bit about Erin and Keith (how could we not). By nine p.m. we hadn’t heard a word from Erin. Ace left a caustic voicemail on Keith’s cellphone asking for Erin to call. Ten p.m. rolls around. My husband is now long-since home from the Mets game, and Ace is FURIOUS with Erin. He calls the cellphone again and leaves a scathing voicemail. Five minutes later the phone rings – it’s Erin, completely drunk and not at all sympathetic to the fact that she’s been rude to the person she supposedly “came to visit”.

Ace tells her to catch a cab to his apartment instead of the bus to my house. He tells her to suck it up, take money out of an ATM and pay for a taxi. They hang up, and after a few more minutes Ace drives home. Twenty minutes later, my phone rings.

“Jaynee, where is ++++++++?” (I’ve blanked it out so you people won’t get on the bus and come to my house).

“That’s the bus stop right down the street from me.”

“I just got a call from Keith. He put her on a (curse word) bus to +++++++++.”

“Then I guess I’m driving her to your place then.”

“No, I’m coming back to your house, but I need you to show me where the bus stop is.”

Twenty minutes later I’m in his car and I drive with him to the bus stop. Sixty seconds later a bus pulls up, and off stumbles an obviously sot Erin. Without a word she pours herself into the backseat of Ace’s car. Ace and I chitchat as he takes me back home, and as I get out of the car she thanks me. I responded politely and as the car drove away I could practically SEE the flames erupting from Ace’s mouth as he lit into her.

Cut to this morning: Denis and I are at the movie theater waiting for Ace to show up. He finally rolls up and he tells me that Erin left his house at 10:30 a.m. for Boston. Good riddance, is what I say.

But the remainder of the weekend was great – we saw a great movie (as I already mentioned), then we found a great bowling alley in West Orange that was DIRT CHEAP compared to the Port Authority. Ace and I have decided to get our own bowling balls so that we can look like pros. What sucks is that an eight-year-old in the lane next to us was a better bowler than we are. I wonder if he can give us lessons?