Glow Bowling

When I was younger, there was no birthday party at a higher premium than glow bowling.  The walk down the stairs at The Ridge, leading to the blacklit lanes were euphoric, causing us all to grin like idiots.  This in turn caused us to grin even more when you noticed your friends' teeth glowing, like some sort of psychedelic vampire.

It could have just been a big, empty room with the blacklights, and we would have still probably enjoyed it.  Throw in the bowling, and it became perfection.  A quantifiable way to compete against your friends?  There's simply nothing better.

The proverbial victory lap after throwing a strike or a spare was a mad dash back to the scoring booth to witness the screen flash its neon X or /, validating your accomplishments.  The best I ever bowled there was a 196 (let's just gloss over that time I got 66...).

I'm jealous of him.

Flash forward to the recent past: The Ridge is closing.  A friend's birthday is coming up and glow bowling is the plan.  I enter Grandview Lanes for the first time; to me, glow bowling had been synonymous with The Ridge; the first few steps in are eerily surreal.  Though the birthday girl is in her late 20s, little has changed in the allure.  Selecting clothes that will blind your peers, highlighters to draw on everyone within arm's reach (there is a higher quota of penis drawings now than in the past, I notice), it's still the same except for the availability of liquor.  The bowling is tangential to the experience this time, and I suspect again that were it just a blacklit room, no one would notice.  I feel more like a kid than I have in some time.  It's a nice feeling.

Birthday parties have passed me by; I'm still in the days of bowling parties, while the norm is now clubbing.  I'm perfectly happy going to other people's birthday parties, more than that, I enjoy it a lot.  But as for my own, I don't remember what the last birthday party I had was (conceivably, it could have been glow bowling).  All I want to do on my birthday is chill out, have some nice food, and have a conversation with kid-Tyler about how things are going.  I imagine this year he'll show up glowing under a personal blacklight, white t-shirt beaming brighter than any birthday candles could.  Maybe I'll take him bowling.

To borrow from a poet I like, Temporary, The Ridge.  And happy birthday Summer, thanks for making me feel like a kid briefly.