B-I-N-G-O

Last night I had a hot date with another man: Jessy’s husband. Sean invited me to go to St. James with him to play BINGO and finally last night the schedules worked out so we could go. Now I haven’t been to BINGO in a church/hall for probably 15 years if not more. The most recent BINGO I played was on the cruise and that was pretty low-key.

Anyway, BINGO has come a long way since I last played. For those of you who haven’t been recently either, let me catch you up:

1. There were probably 150 people there of all ages which surprised me because I think of BINGO as a blue-hair’s game
2. Fear not, the “fun” people are still there – the awkward woman with her 20 neon plastic bracelets up her right arm, he old man with his troll doll watching over his cards for good luck, the mid-50’s lady who had little tolerance for poor calling because she’s there on a mission (when we played the corner postage stamp rounds she’d yell “No N’s!” when the caller accidentally pulled one)
3. The pad of BINGO cards I got was 3X4 for a total of 12 cards (squares) per sheet. I was probably the person with the least amount of cards in the hall. For comparison, Sean was watching 30 cards to my 12 and was more accurate at getting all the numbers than I was. Total we played 12 total rounds of bingo each having 2 games per round (used the same sheet for the whole round) for a total of 24 games.
4. “Single Line Bingo” isn’t really that at all- you can win with a straight line, corners, large diamond or a small diamond. This threw me at first because I was watching 12 different cards and had to look for several permutations of winning, not just a simple line. A little more complicated than the days of ole…
5. You can spend a small fortune in 3 hours – not only is the church selling the bingo cards (which this month are on special- up to 36 for a flat $10), but they sell special game cards for $1 and tons of pull-tab games at $1 each. I had enough stuff to keep me busy and active the whole time since I'm apparently a BINGO novice, so I only spent about $15 the whole night. I think the average spend per person was probably about $50. What was nice was that unlike so many other entertainment places, you could bring in your own food and drinks. So, I packed my PB&J, granola bar, banana and water, and didn’t need to visit the concession stand at all (though sitting next to it did make me want popcorn- it smelled so good!).
6. No more is the winning card determined by reading out all the numbers they BINGOed with. Now, each card has a serial number and they plug that number into a computer and the computer says whether or not the card’s a winner. Much more efficient I think.
7. I didn’t win anything. Then again, I’ve never won at BINGO. I did come within 1 twice and within 2 (even on the coverall!) a few times. I think Sean was accurate that I had as many close calls as he did, even with the difference in quantity of cards.

I had a good time. Those stampers, a new thing for me, are a riot- I felt very professional using it! I wish, however, that Jim was more interested in going – it would have been more fun with him and Jess there to get us more riled up about being so close and the agony of defeat.