by Trent Rosser
Constantly, I am being woken up at night, every night! Hunter the dog sleeps with us and sometimes he does not want me to get too close to my wife so he will get in between us and try to kick me out of the bed. He wakes me up by kicking my back with his front paws or sitting on my head until I wake up and roll over to the very edge of the bed. Did I mention that we have a king size bed? With my wife on the edge and me on the edge and a huge dog in the middle, it is amazing we get any sleep at all! Rascal the cat will try to come in sometimes and “God Forbid!” if there is an empty spot in his food bowl! He will howl all night long until you get up out of bed and move his food around so the empty spot is no longer there. Or he will want to go outside: at 3 am. Then when you get up, make your way to the front door, open it for him to leave and he just stares outside as you hold the door open. I have said it before and I will say it again, Rascal is a jerk! So here I am at 4 am while everyone else is asleep. So, what can we talk about at 4 am? I know! Adult games! Yes, here it is in the middle of the night and we are going to talk about games that adults play….. Wait? Not those kind of games! I am talking about Bingo halls and Scavenger hunts!
My wife and I went to play bingo a few weeks ago. It was her first time and my first time in over 20 years. When they call the numbers, you have to use a marker that they call a “Dabber” to mark the cards. They have different ways to win. Each game is different. Sometimes you are looking to get 3 bingos and sometimes they are trying to get a “Blackout” (which is where all the numbers on the card are marked). We were looking pretty good and only had 2 numbers to go for winning the money, when the guy across the room from us yelled “Bingo!” It was about this time that I found out that my wife can chunk a dabber a pretty good distance. It almost hit the guy! I did what any good husband would do, I pretended that I did not know her! So we waited a few days and go to a different bingo hall. This time it was me. The person pulling the balls out of the machine (the caller) will show the next ball before they call them and it is called “The Horseshoe number”. Unfortunately you cannot call a bingo until the number is called by the caller. Yep, you guessed it. The prize was $700 and I only needed 1 number. I remember it well. It was I-28. The bingo caller called out a number and the next one in the chute was I-28, and then I heard that awful voice again “Bingo!” I swear it was the same guy. I looked at my wife and showed her the card with only one spot. We promised ourselves that we would never go back to any bingo hall. We spent too much money and it was too frustrating, so no more. …… We will be going back next weekend.
There is also a new group on Facebook called Amarillo Scavenger Hunt. Now if you haven’t heard of them yet, I believe that you will soon. They have already been featured on the local news and some of the clues are now being broadcast across one of the radio station. I came across this by accident. They are doing this to get people out of the house and off the couch this summer. I heard a couple of clues to one of their hunts and I had an idea where it was at. I was wrong, but then the next hunt came out, and I became interested in it. Clue after clue and I kept narrowing it down. This one went on for days, and they moved the prize from $200 to $300 and then finally to $400 due to no one finding it yet. I knew where it was. It was in a park just east of the College. So for the entire Easter weekend I searched this park. I became sunburned looking behind signs and in trees and under benches. I even picked up my wife from work and instead of taking her home so she could change clothes; we instead, drove straight to the park to keep looking. More clues and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I could be wrong. After all I have searched the entire park! Finally it was posted that it was found and the winner received the $400. Guess where it was? At the park I had been searching for 3 days! Behind the stop sign! My wife had checked that sign! Turns out that she had seen it, but thought it was the sticker that is on the back of all road signs. So now our adult games have gone from Monopoly and Yatzee to bingo and scavenger hunts. We might not have won any money, but we spend time together and have fun together, and spending quality time with my wife is worth more than any bingo or scavenger hunt can pay.
By the way, do you know how to get 60 seniors and adults to start cussing at the same time….easy, just yell “BINGO!”
