Rub the Rooster

Let me explain. Whenever one of the bartenders, Aline (pronounced eye-lean) goes gambling, she usually comes back a winner. And I'm not talking small winner here, she once won a Harley from a slot machine. She's lucky. So a while back, when Kevin and I were dating, he had to go to Vegas for work and I tagged along (I had never been to Vegas before). Since I knew that we would be gambling I wanted Aline to "rub" some of her luck onto something for me so I would win. My friend Monica was making these really cute bracelets at the time. She made me one and put a little rooster charm at one end of it because Aline collects roosters. Aline wore the bracelet for about a week before we left and then gave me the lucky charm. I came home with $800 extra dollars in my pocket. My rooster bracelet has pretty much been sitting in the bottom of my purse since then.

Until last night.

Before our 3rd shuffleboard game against Hunter's Rocks, I had wanted to make a new team shirt with a 4-leaf clover somewhere on it. But I'm lazy, don't get out of work 'til late and I like to drink on the weekends so I never got around to making it. I don't know how or why my rooster bracelet popped into my head but I'm glad it did.

The Crowe BarFlies finally got our first win of the season. Now I'm not saying that the rooster had anything to do with it, but it didn't hurt either. Since I have still not been able to come up with a good voodoo spell for my opponents, whenever there was a shot that I wanted to go a certain way, I closed my eyes tight, rubbed the little rooster charm and just kept repeating in my head what I wanted to happen. I'm sure I looked like a crazy person. Maybe I am, but I don't care. The rooster seemed to work. And we need all the help we can get.

Game 1 - Match Record 0-0

Dave (otherwise lovingly known as "Old Geezer") and Roger were first up to play and they were giving up no handicap points. Our handicaps are figured out by dividing the individual’s total number of games won by the individual’s total number of games played. We are all evaluated at mid-season and at the end of each season. So Dave's handicap is a 1 and Roger is a 2. They played against another 1 and 2 so therefore, no handicap points, which is nice because we tend to give up an average of 2 points per game. All of the players seemed to have been matched pretty well. Then all of a sudden we are down 8-13. The other team only needed 2 more points to take the first game. Well, not tonight. Dave scored 5 points and in the very next frame, Roger also scored 5 points. Phew! One down, three to go!

Game 2 - Match Record 1-0

Next, we put up Steve and John and had to give up 2 handicap points. But John got those points back and then some in the first frame. The score kept flip-flopping back and forth between teams but we managed to take this game too. We need only two more wins and then it's time to celebrate!

Game 3 - Match Record 2-0

Mom and Bert (Bertha) were up next. Mom chose to play the end closest to the door, which seemed a little strange because once she has a favorite side she almost never plays the other. This game started off a little scary with us giving up 2 handicap points again. Mom wasn't sticking her shots and Bert just couldn't get a handle on the speed (which can be one of the trickiest parts of the game in my opinion). So we are down 0-8 and I start getting a feeling that we might actually get skunked. Then it's 0-10... 0-11... 0-12... 0-13... Then it finally happened. Mom scored a point. We were not getting skunked. But we did lose 16 to 1. We still only need two more wins.

My heart has started to beat a little faster at this point. I cannot blow another lead. We're up 2 games to 1. Who do I put up now? Lexie and myself were the only people who had not played yet. Do I play us together? What to do? What to do?

Game 4 - Match Record 2-1

I decided to play with Steve as my partner. We had to give up one point but we made it back quickly. I scored 4 points in my first frame but that was all I added to our score. Steve did the rest of the heavy lifting and we pulled it out 16 to 9.

Game 5 - Match Record 3-1

Now we are at what possibly could be the last game and of course Lexie is going up. Steve isn't available to play because in our league once you have won two games you can't play anymore. Bert, Dave and Roger have already left which left John, Mom and me. John was the obvious pick. For something different, we had to give up 4 stinkin' points! At one point we were down 4 to 11, but John and Lexie made a great comeback and won it in dramatic fashion 15 to 14.

Oh. My. God. We finally won a match! We won it 4 to 1! I now feel a tiny bit better about being the captain.

Quote of the night: "Be invisible. Be invisible. Be invibible. That's hard to say. You try to say it three times fast!" - Margaret

Record:

1-2

Next Opponent - Stafford Ye "Olde" Puckers

Go BarFlies!