December 7: 267

There's a point in almost every (ambitious-enough-to-graduate) college student's tenure when he or she has the luxury of taking a class for nothing more than to take the class. For me, I was done with my physical education requirement by my sophomore year, but I still enrolled in a bowling class for the fall and spring semesters as well as the intersession of my senior year.

One of the great things about the particular coach of the class, was that she allowed us to make up days that we missed by attending a local bowling alley at our convenience, printing our scores, and returning them to her at the next class meeting. A group of my friends and I always went to a twenty-four hour bowling alley at some point in the week anyway, so even if I had missed a class, I would have had no problem making up the games.

I believe it was during intersession that I was enrolled with one of my best friends and for whatever reason, he had to miss a class, but couldn't join us on our weekly visit to Linbrook Lanes, so I told him I would just type his name in my spot and bowl his games for him. I never would have imagined the night I would have using his name.

The first ball I threw was a strike and everyone joked about me throwing a perfect game under a different alias as my own. The jokes only intensified when I threw my next ball for a strike as well. By the time I had thrown my seventh strike in a row, neighboring lanes were starting to gather and watch every time my turn rolled around. Of course, this is when I lost my bid for perfection by throwing the ball right into the gutter. Fortunately, I still picked up the spare in the eighth, bowled another two strikes, and then picked up the spare at the tail-end of the tenth to end with a score of 267; shattering my previous high score.

I printed the score out, but I changed the name to my own because I wasn't about to let my friend get all the glory for the night of my life. We gave him someone else's score so he still got the credit he didn't even really deserve, but I will never forget how on I felt that night. I always think back to that one gutter and think of the possibilities of what my score could have been too. The closest I've gotten to that score has been maybe a 250, but I rarely even break 200! For some reason, everything was clicking that night.