My parents spent most of the summer painting and remodeling the bowling alley. Yes, my parents own a bowling alley. Well, they don’t technically own it. The city of Savage owns it. My parents lease it for $1 a year.

See, the city wants the land the bowling alley is on. But they don’t want it right now. . . just eventually. It’s much better for the city to have a hip-hop-happening bowling alley, then just a boarded up old building.

Dan Patch Lanes is just about the most adorable little bowling alley on the face of the earth. It’s tiny and old fashioned. It only has 8 lanes. You have to keep score yourself; there is none of this automatic, computer-score keeping bullshit. We, at Dan Patch Lanes, highly value mathematical skills.

The place used to be these lovely shades of baby blue and orange. I loved the delicious tackiness of it. It was just so 1950s bowling alley cheesy. But my parents committed a crime against humanity and all that is good and pure. They painted the bowling alley. I was crushed.

Gone was my beloved, clashing orange and blue. They replaced it with a more sedate light blue and a royal blue. Pbbbtttt!! What fun is a bowling alley, if it’s not gonna cheese it up?

Despite this new-fangled remodeling crap, I love the bowling alley. From it’s yellow swivel barstools, to the cans of Miller High Life in the beer cooler. I love the rows of stinky old bowling shoes circa 1956. Well, I like the way they look. I actually hate the stinky bowling shoes.

Actually, I don’t have to touch them too often. I don’t mind giving the shoes out at the beginning of the night. But at the end of the night when they are all warm and smelly from some guys’ feet, you can’t pay me to touch them. Ewwww, I get the shivers just thinking about it.

We have this spray; it’s called like Jet-O-Cide or some such nonsense. The can of spray claims to kill athlete’s foot, streptococcus, and the HIV virus. Alert the Centers for Disease Control! Apparently they are not aware that the cure for HIV is sitting on the back counter of Dan Patch Lanes in Savage. We could be millionaires!

But so, I’ve trained my boys. They know not to but their hot, smelly shoes in front of my face at the end of the night. I’ve trained them to hop behind the counter, grab the Jet-O-Cide and spray their shoes and then place them in the appropriate cubby.

I rule. This is one of the reasons I love the bowling alley.

I love the sound of the pinsetters and the look of the sweep. I love when the old balls get stuck back in the ball return and I have to run back along the lanes and jam my arm into the lane, and release the little door that holds the ball. Sometimes a pin gets stuck in the doorthingy and the ball isn’t released. The bowling alley is so old the balls whiz back to the bowlers above ground. You can see if your ball gets stuck. You can watch it roll back to you and then up the ball-return ramp.

This is all technical lingo. I am sorry if you don’t understand the complicated machinery involved in the sophisticated sport of bowling.

Tonight is my first night of bowling for the season. During leagues, I work behind the counter on Fridays and every other Monday. Basically I rent out shoes and sling beer. It’s the best job I think I’ve ever had in my entire life. Old men love me, because they see me as some hip chickie. They have no idea that I am really a not-so-young, kinda dorky woman. But who am I to tell them any different?

As much as I hate to admit it, I am so excited to see all the guys again. I call them boys. My Friday-night boys are my most favorite of all. It’s a bit funny that I call them boys, being that most of them are old enough to be my grandpa. But when you get a group of 40 men together, they all turn into boys.

They are fascinating to watch. My Friday boys range in age from 22 to 76. That’s more than one generation gap. But you get them all together and they act the same. It’s amazing. They crack the same jokes, they all look at breasts, and they drink the same beer.

I love them all. I love that they think I am still in school because I sit behind the bar reading a book. I love that they are always thrilled when I remember what kind of beer they drink (not that it’s hard we only have seven different kinds).

Oh! Now I can’t wait to get to the bowling alley tonight. It really is ironic that I work at a bowling alley. I hate bowling with a passion. It’s even more ironic because I am really good at it. Never one to be particularly athletically inclined, I took a bowling class in college and kicked much ass.

My family, who all bowl, has tried for years to get me to bowl. They are always unsuccessful.

Despite all this I love that damn little bowling alley.