I'm rather surprised that no one's done just a straight bowling story-you know, funky shoes, moon walking (maybe that's just my FFA chapter…), turnsies, pizza, laughter, and, of course, picking on Lassiter. Enjoy this short, kinda weird oneshot.
I wasn't quite sure how it happened. First, I was sitting at my desk, finishing up the paperwork from the last case. Next thing I knew, Spencer, Guster, and O'Hara had ganged up on me, practically kidnapped, some inner voice yelled later, and forced me down to the bowling lanes.
I now stood in those weird tri-colored shoes they always made you wear as Spencer keyed us into the lane.
"We're all set!" he announced.
I was rolling my eyes before he even finished. All set my foot. I still had a dozen reports to fill out; requisitions, shots fired, medical, consultant, you name it I probably had to fill it out before too much longer.
"And Lassie gets to go first!" Spencer finished, interrupting my inner monologue.
I looked dubiously at the ball he held out to me. "Spencer," I growled. It was a reflex, I swear. "That ball is pink."
"Yeah!" he said, much more enthusiastic than he should've been. "It's Bowl for Breast Cancer week!"
"Come on, Carlton, you know you want to bowl with us!" O'Hara squealed, jumping up and down, her own shoes (which were most distinctly not the same as mine, I might add) making no sound as they hit the carpeted eating area.
I sighed, taking the ball simply to humor them. "Watch," I boasted as I got into the unfamiliar positioning. "I'll get a strike on the first frame."
Taking a deep breath, I took a few steps forward, like they taught in school, and let the ball fly. It went probably a quarter of the way down the lane before hitting the actual wood, and it slowed as it reached the end of the lane.
I crossed my fingers without letting any of the others see, hoping that my prediction would turn out to be true.
The pink ball finally made contact with the red headpin, and I spun around.
"Hah! Eat it!" I crowed, while cringing inside. Eat it? Had I been hanging out with Spencer for too long?
"Uh, Lassiter?" Guster piped up timidly. "You only knocked down two pins."
I turned, dismayed to find that he was right. I whirled around at the sound of snickering.
"Man! Lassie, you've definitely been around me too long if you're starting to talk like me!"
I didn't bother to dignify Spencer with a response, instead turning to pick up the newly-returned ball to throw again.
Mostly, the same outcome appeared: I threw, it went partway down the lane before landing, and rolled slowly down the rest of the way. This time, it landed in the area on the left of the lane.
"Gut-ter!" Spencer said, stressing and drawing out the second syllable.
O'Hara patted my back. "Don't feel bad, Carlton, you just haven't practiced much."
I don't reply, mostly because I'm trying to control my urge to start tap dancing out on the lane. The wood was perfect for it.
Spencer went next, and I noticed he didn't have a pink ball. "Hey, where's your pink ball?" I asked sourly.
"Hmm?" he hummed. "Oh, that. Well, see, they only had one left, so we did turnsies to see who got the ball. And since you were the last one…"
"The hell…" I started, not remembering this part of the evening.
"Oh, yeah, that was when you were in the bathroom," O'Hara said. "Turnsies. Like this."
The three of them stuck their right index fingers on their noses, flipping it around quickly to show the pad on the end of their fingers.
"Turnsies," Spencer said decisively after he removed his finger. He picked up the ball and threw.
His went much smoother than mine, I noted with something akin to jealously tinting my thoughts (and if you tell Spencer, I swear that you WILL die) as his ball hit the pins and knocked them all down.
"St-rike!" he yelled. He started dancing, doing the moonwalk back down the alley.
We continued on with a few more frames before the pizza arrived. I managed to do not too badly-Guster was worse than me-and I was at a solid 67 by the fifth frame when the girl came out. She set it down with a few plates, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Spencer and Guster started arguing immediately about who got the first slice with O'Hara trying to intervene while I reached over and snagged a piece.
"Not cool, Lassie, not cool at all!" Spencer pouted, sitting across from me with his own slice.
I rolled my eyes, actually enjoying myself for today. Paperwork could wait.
"Carlton? Why are you eating your pizza in layers?"
FIN
Hope you enjoyed. If you wanna use this idea for your own story, like as inspiration or use it as something in your story (such as a memory, etc.), be my guest as long as you mention this story. Thanks for reading! If you sign in and leave a review, I'll reply, but I accept anons. Feel free to flame as well, it was just supposed to be a fun oneshot about them hanging out. :D
