Wednesday, May 12, 2010
My son was sweet enough to give me a sinus infection for Mothers Day, so I stayed away from the Soldiers Home until I’d gulped my last antibiotic. (The only thing worse than a quarantine at the Soldiers Home is causing a quarantine at the Soldiers Home.) And by Wednesday I was ready for a night of Bingo—or, at least, I thought I was.
Turns out I’d lost my Bingo groove—and I wasn’t the only one. The karaoke machine they use as a number-calling microphone wasn’t working. Gary and Wesley fiddled around with it for a while, only to somehow wrap the cord around Gary’s wheelchair. When he scooted away, so did the microphone. It landed on the floor with a thud, and something that looked kind of crucial popped out. So Wesley was in for a night of some serious voice work (people have a hard enough time hearing numbers with the microphone).
Sound was a problem for me, too—but it wasn’t my only one. Maybe my ears were still stuffier than I’d thought, but the whole night felt as if I were in some kind of vibrational vortex: Someone would call Bingo, and I’d zip to where I thought I’d heard the yell, but the real Bingo was on the other side of the room. I did this at least four times. Plus, I was having trouble finding Bingos on the winners’ cards—and it’s not like there are thousands of options. It’s a Bingo card, for crying out loud: You’ve got your up and down, your across, your diagonal and your four corners (‘cause we’re professionals), and that’s all there is to it. But tonight even that was too much.
Luckily, nobody seemed seriously irritated with me. Although, after I bungled one Bingo at his table, Gary yelled out, “Where do you get your help around here, anyway?” I think he was teasing me.
After Bingo I checked on Mike (zzzzzz), and on my way out passed Victor in the hall. He asked if I’d come to his room so he could share something on his mind. He told me he had resisted fishing in the pond at the Soldiers Home for years, but then one day some guys talked him into going. He didn’t think it’d be fun, but he kept casting his line, anyway—and darned if he didn’t start catching fish.
He was really animated and dramatic as he told the story, acting out the challenges of reeling and casting from a wheelchair, and I could tell this story meant a lot to him. “I kept reeling,” he told me, “really reeling. And all of a sudden, I felt like a …” He trailed off. I wanted to say “man,” but I didn’t want to assume he hadn’t felt like a man before. So I improvised and guessed: “fisherman?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “I felt like a fisherman.” Bingo.
My son was sweet enough to give me a sinus infection for Mothers Day, so I stayed away from the Soldiers Home until I’d gulped my last antibiotic. (The only thing worse than a quarantine at the Soldiers Home is causing a quarantine at the Soldiers Home.) And by Wednesday I was ready for a night of Bingo—or, at least, I thought I was.
Turns out I’d lost my Bingo groove—and I wasn’t the only one. The karaoke machine they use as a number-calling microphone wasn’t working. Gary and Wesley fiddled around with it for a while, only to somehow wrap the cord around Gary’s wheelchair. When he scooted away, so did the microphone. It landed on the floor with a thud, and something that looked kind of crucial popped out. So Wesley was in for a night of some serious voice work (people have a hard enough time hearing numbers with the microphone).
Sound was a problem for me, too—but it wasn’t my only one. Maybe my ears were still stuffier than I’d thought, but the whole night felt as if I were in some kind of vibrational vortex: Someone would call Bingo, and I’d zip to where I thought I’d heard the yell, but the real Bingo was on the other side of the room. I did this at least four times. Plus, I was having trouble finding Bingos on the winners’ cards—and it’s not like there are thousands of options. It’s a Bingo card, for crying out loud: You’ve got your up and down, your across, your diagonal and your four corners (‘cause we’re professionals), and that’s all there is to it. But tonight even that was too much.
Luckily, nobody seemed seriously irritated with me. Although, after I bungled one Bingo at his table, Gary yelled out, “Where do you get your help around here, anyway?” I think he was teasing me.
After Bingo I checked on Mike (zzzzzz), and on my way out passed Victor in the hall. He asked if I’d come to his room so he could share something on his mind. He told me he had resisted fishing in the pond at the Soldiers Home for years, but then one day some guys talked him into going. He didn’t think it’d be fun, but he kept casting his line, anyway—and darned if he didn’t start catching fish.
He was really animated and dramatic as he told the story, acting out the challenges of reeling and casting from a wheelchair, and I could tell this story meant a lot to him. “I kept reeling,” he told me, “really reeling. And all of a sudden, I felt like a …” He trailed off. I wanted to say “man,” but I didn’t want to assume he hadn’t felt like a man before. So I improvised and guessed: “fisherman?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “I felt like a fisherman.” Bingo.