“I think it’s just going to get weirder and weirder and weirder, and finally it’s going to be so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is. – Terence McKenna
“It takes an entire civilization to build a toaster.” – Thomas Thwaites
The following document is a product review of the Flextro Bowling Ball Bag. The statements herein are the express opinions and ravings of Red Wizard [the magical being]. They are not in any way the views of the Flextro Corporation, nor are many of the following statements related to bowling or bowling ball bags. This is, however, a review of the Flextro Bowling Ball Bag.
To properly understand a physical object, we must first understand the context that created it.
Furthermore, any human mind that attempts to understand an object also has its own context to consider. The mind is a result of psycho, social, spiritual, and cultural influences. These influences fundamentally alter the perception of the object perceived.
I observe a bowling ball bag. I observe myself. Both of these objects are complex relics, results of millions of years of geological and biological processes. An organism is merely the intricate arrangement of dead matter that results in a web of sentience. I see. You see.
My origins are not of this earth, but I live here now. I’m subject to its scientific and political laws. They govern my nature (for the most part).
I grew up and live in Buffalo, NY, an American city known for its cold winter weather. Even the geographically ignorant and culturally bereft citizens of the United States know that Buffalo is a cold place.
It is January 10th, and today I turn 41. Each of my birthdays has been a cold and windy affair. My birthday parties were always a battle of two seasons: winter and influenza. My guests had to navigate snow-covered, slippery roads, infernal darkness, and debilitating illnesses. I would often be sick at my own birthday parties.
Once, when I was seven, at Lazer Tag, I cried with nausea as my birthday cake made its way to the table. Candles lit. People singing. The sound of Ski Ball and rock music rattles my brain. As a gift, I received a pair of slippers that were shaped like sharks. (The kind that your toes stick out of their mouths.) When I got home, I put them on and promptly shit my pants. The sharks obviously south of the ordeal. I never wore the shark slippers again. Something about them felt tainted and unholy afterwards. They sat at the foot of my bed for years. A grim reminder of how cold and diseased a January birthday in Buffalo can be.
Over the years, I paid close attention to the weather on January 10th because I had to. I had to ask myself important questions. Would my birthday party be snowed out? Would Bernie’s dad crash their minivan into a ditch on their way to Discovery Zone? If I have a super power, it is this: I can recall the weather of each January 10th in Buffalo for the past 41 years.
Today is January 10th, 2026. I step out of my front door and check the weather. It is 51 degrees. There is no snow. The air smells of dead leaves, soil, and earthworms. My Japanese maple tree has been fooled by the warmth. It is beginning to bud, even though spring is over 2 months away.
The unseasonal heat reminds me of our planet’s eventual ecological collapse. I think of all the other trees being fooled. Millions of them, that evolved to sense the weather, to prepare for its changes. Eventually, the erratic patterns of weather will destroy their ability to forecast. They will use precious resources and energy stored within them on false starts. The fruit orchards just north of my home will send their blooms too early. The fragile leafy flesh will be shocked and frozen by snow.
A tree with no flowers doesn’t bear fruit. A tree without fruit can’t feed people. A tree that can’t feed people eventually becomes fuel for a fire that burns my community down. Sure, I’m speculating, but I can see the pattern. There is one thing I know for certain about climate change: When the giant flames engulf the horizon, and I see my neighbors running aflame, someone I know, whose body is ablaze, will say, “Yeah, but climate change is a hoax.”
I’ll try to respond by saying, “actually I got my graduate degree at New York State’s environmental science and forestry school, I know quite a bit about ecology. The Earth’s atmosphere is only about 60 miles thick. It is not unreasonable to think that over 200 years of burning fuels, and treating our sky like an open sewer, that it could eventually-” It’s too late. My body is burning like Sara Connor’s nuclear nightmare in Terminator 2. Somehow, my skeleton is still screaming, but my tongue, now ash, can’t utter facts. My friend, burning (and still in denial) will say, “Yeah, but this is just a natural cycle- it has to do with sunspots, you know, the spots on the sun?”
As what is left of my burning body crawls, like a zombie that has escaped the grave, I muster one final curse and condemnation.
“Fuck you, and fuck the sun. I’m out.”
Our digital age has enveloped our senses to the point that we can’t identify the truth in front of our eyes. We’re scrambled beyond recognition. Little pawns for corporate and political interests. Even as you read these words, your mind is trying to file this information into a box, one that has been fashioned for you by people you’ve never met. Your rulers. Kings are unfashionable these days, so they prefer to remain anonymous. We don’t call ourselves slaves, because it ain’t no fun to think that you don’t have any control over your life. I don’t know what to call it, but when your country is over a trillion dollars in debt, it means that you, your children, and your children’s children will spend their lives paying off that debt. We’ve been saddled, and a red rubber ball has been placed in our mouths. Keep marching. You’ve got a long way to go, sucker.
A computer works in binary. On or Off. Yes or No. Blue or Red. Bad or Good. There is no room for nuance in the mind of a computer. If we can call it a mind. Tell me, do you remember turning into a cyborg, or did it just creep up on you, as it did me?
I’m awoken from my daymare. There is an unexpected guest on my front porch. It is a large cardboard box, dampened by the January rain. I didn’t expect any packages, so I look at my phone and pull up my Amazon account. Nothing. I receive a text from my friend, it is a link to a news article, the title reads, “Ice Agent Kills a Protester in Minneapolis”. It reminds me of the digital binaries that our cyborg minds operate in. Internet versus internet. Incompatible. I can’t read it; the title seems far-fetched. Not in my America. Besides, I think I have a surprise birthday gift to open.
I pull the damp box into my foyer and begin to open it. My wife is my audience now.
“What did you order?” She asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
I cut through the thin transparent tape, unfold a couple of big flaps, and reveal a stunning beauty of a bowling ball bag.
“Wow, this bag can hold two balls!” I said.
“Ah, him and her’s.” My wife replies, mesmerized.
“And the color, it’s blue and cream.”
“It’s periwinkle blue,” she says, and I know what she’ll say next: the phrase, periwinkle blue, has a special place in the repertoire of our shared humor.
“Perrywinkle blue.” She says again, soft-spoken, impersonating the old lady at the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Periwinkle blue is the color of the dress Norman Bates clothed his dead mother in. His dead mother was the corpse that he kept in his home, sitting in a rocking chair. When my wife and I started dating, she took me to her uncle’s house for a Psycho Party. It was a big deal. Uncle Brian screened the film in BluRay and he ordered a special cake from a local bakery. It had the silhouette of Bates (dressed as “mother”), his knife ready to stab Marion Crane in the famous shower scene.
I gather my things. It’s time to go bowling and give the Flextro Bowling Ball Bag an “honest review”.
When I tell people that I write a blog about bowling, they invariably ask me the same thing: “Are you good at bowling?” The answer is no. I’m a terrible bowler. In fact, every time I go, I get worse. I bowl because I love the sound and smell of the sport. Just as fishing in nature ignites my soul, so does bowling, but there are no trees and rippling glares of sunny waves at the lanes. There is the sweet smell of wax, the clamor of the pins, and the faded neon lights that excite me… but maybe, just maybe, the Flextro has what it takes to up my game. This is a magical bowling ball bag. I received it on my 41st birthday. A gift from the company, they want an “honest review”. I’m not sure if they ever read my blog, but I must say I’m quite happy.
The auspiciousness of this event. A gift from the bowling gods. The Dude abides.
I decide to postpone my mourning for our dying planet and go to the lanes.
Shoe Compartment
My feet are abnormally large. I distinctly remember my modified football coach looking at them, his mouth open in wonderment; he couldn’t believe the size of them. One afternoon, he forgot his playbook, so he gave me his keys and sent me to fetch it in his car. It was a maroon Oldsmobile. I ran over to it, still wearing my equipment. My cleats clicking on the asphalt. The sight inside the car shocked me. He had hundreds of McDonald’s Fish-Fl-A sandwich wrappers shoved between the front seats and the center console, the result of what looked like a daily ritual. I tried to imagine why coach had so many sandwich wrappers. I couldn’t. I decided there that old men are weird and thought no more of it.
I mention this because I have big feet, and this guy thought they were big enough to gawk at. I’m only 5”11”, but I have size 13 shoes. They fit easily into the Flextro bag. I can easily access them from the zipper at the top of the bag, or more easily by opening up the main compartment and unzipping the lid (where the shoes are stored). There are ventilation openings in the shoe compartment, which means if your feet stink…they might stink less with the Flextro.
Two Ball bag
The Flextro bag can hold two balls, but it comes with an additional single ball bag that can attach and detach from the main two-ball bag. Therefore, the Flextro can hold three balls total. I own one bowling ball, so like any other good hobbyist, I decide it’s time to get a new one. Flextro sent me the bag for free (a 109 dollar value), so if I spend 200 dollars on a new ball, it’s like I only spent 109, right?
This is the conversation that I have with myself on the way to the Bowling store. It is here that I have a protoreligious experience. They have a giant ashtray for sale, about the size of a salad bowl. A ceramic, hand-painted work of art. It has three members of a bowling team sitting on chairs, they watch a teammate roll a ball at the pins on the other end of the tray. It has a neon “For Sale” tag scotch taped to it, that says in Sharpie “Very Rare”. I believe them.
A tall gentleman with curly hair and a stuffy nose helps me pick my new weapon. A Brunswik Danger Zone. A gorgeous black beauty.
“These were big in the nineties, Brunswick brought ‘em back,” he says as he flicks his nostril with a thumb. He looks like he is nursing a hangover, or perhaps it is the resin and polyurethane dust that he works in all day that has his nose bright red. He fits the ball to my hand with the use of several strange gadgets. I ask him if I can have my name engraved on it.
“What’s the name?” He asks.
“Red, like the color,” I say.
With a hand dremel, he scribes it, flecks of black now grey flying into his face. He fills the word-grooves with red enamel and glitter. I’m happy. I place the ball into the Flextro. I drive to Cherry Laurel Lanes.
My favorite place. It’s Friday. The elderly catholics are being served Fish Fry. I find it appropriate that my Flextro will now smell like fried beer-battered fish. This is its christening. The oils of the fryer. The oils of the lanes. It is in these sacraments that I bathe myself. The drive here was extremely windy. On my way to the front door, I found an aluminum chimney cap that must have blown off Cherry Laurel’s roof. I hand it to an employee at the front desk. A beautiful middle-aged woman with bleached blond hair.
“I think this blew off your roof,” I say. She puts her head in her hands at the sight of it. “Don’t worry, maybe it’s old,” I say, trying to cheer her up.
“Oh, it’s old, alright.” She says.
I extend the bag handle and wheel the Flextro to lane 16. It handles better than my suitcase. I feel her. My periwinkle and cream lady. Oh, how I love her. I hear another beer-battered filet hit the hot oil. I look at the religious in their pious sweaters, permed hair, and dusty makeup.
Accessories Compartment
In the accessories compartment, I have a bottle of Foaming Ball Cleaner, an arcade card, and a Band-Aid, but I’m sure it could fit much more. You could easily fit a banana, a cellphone, and a Holy Bible inside of it.
I put on my shoes. I remove the Brunswik Danger Zone from the bag and place it in the ball return rack. I let the fan dry my fingers. I survey the lanes to see who is watching. I look at the name “red” inscribed into the ball. A nickname that I gave myself, which was also the nickname of my late grandfather. Harold “Red” Doherty.
Later in his life, Red suffered from some kind of autoimmune disease. His body attacked his eyes, and he went blind. One of his pleasures was bowling, which he continued to do despite his disability. I have a picture of him after he got a strike during a competition of blind bowlers. Black and white. Cokebottle glasses. His fist raised in heartfelt delight.
As I put my fingers into the ball, and place my feet on the approach dots, and look at the arrows pointing to my goal, I wonder, how many more years do I have left? How many more years until these eyes of mine no longer see? How many more years until I do what I want with this life, a fleeting thing that I don’t understand?
You can purchase the Flextro Bowling Ball Bag by pressing the link below. It is Red’s Amazon Associates account. By using the link to purchase, you help support The Bowling Diarrhea Blog at no extra cost to you.
Bowling Diarrhea 
Leave a comment