Bowling Diarrhea

If I am ever rendered intellectually ‘unable’ to entertain myself, please make sure my caretakers send me to AMF lanes weekly. It has everything for the homeboys: bowling, an arcade, pizza with extra cheese, and a tiny bar that serves Malibu.

While you strap on my velcro shoes, I need you to understand something. I don’t want to go to AMF Airport Lanes because it is safe for family fun (Which it is.) I want to go to AMF because I can’t tell what the hell is going on here.

AMF Airport lanes is located in Cheektowaga, NY (chEEEk-tOw-AH-GAH). This neighborhood has always filled me with existential dread for two main reasons:

1. Every Suburb in the United States will eventually look like Cheektowaga.
2. I was adopted at birth.

Let me explain.

This final mutation of strip malls and car dealerships is mostly Polish. Ancestry.com recently revealed that I am 45% Polish. This means AMF Airport Lanes is poised to become my community center, gym, and library. The question is, do I embrace my heritage now, or do I wait until I’m so old they ship me here against my will?

Apparently I have no choice. It is in my blood. With a bit of luck, I will be senile enough and casually hallucinate while I’m here. Back at my Prom Dance afterparty. I’m an idiot savant at Big Buck Hunter and Area 51. Yes, I can moonwalk.

AMF Airport Lanes is a solid brick of gizmos and gadgets that trick the eye. From the outside, it looks like a laser tag joint. The inside looks like the place where John Connor and his ginger teenage friend learned how to play Missile Command before cyborgs took over the planet. There are no pictures of Betty Boop on the walls, but I am pretty sure she runs the place.

Does the future look like 1987? I hope so. Can grey walls sparkle and shine like a red jeweled prom dress? The answer is yes.

There is more than one unexplained visual phenomenon at AMF Airport Lanes. Too many to identify with normal human biological eyes. I will however warn you about one. But first I must ask you…how aggressive of an athlete are you?

Come prepared to roll your bowling ball on top of a moving, breathing, sweating, facsimile of Freddy Mercury.

Can you, dear reader, knowingly roll your rock over the head of one of Rock and Roll’s most beloved bears?

I did, and it wasn’t easy.

Luckily I payed attention in 6th grade science class and I was able to tell the cause of this ghostly phenomena. The ghost of Freddy mercury is just a music video that is reflecting off the the freshly oiled lanes. Somehow Spectrum cable is still piping VH1 music videos into this grease castle. Freddy’s first image is projected onto a screen. His second, glides horizontally on the lane. How many ghosts does Freddy have? Or is he some immortal spirit downloaded into AMF’s cybernetic core?

Did I mention that my daughters found the claw machine game?

Do I have children?

Where am I?