Friday, March 17, 2006

Another Interesting Night At The VFW

It was a very interesting night at the VFW bingo last night.  I think Tuesday's full moon carried over into Thursday.  Bigtime.  We knew we were in for a rough night when the bingo caller had to yell into the microphone so people could hear her over the roar of the crowd.  The players eventually quietened down and it was smoothe sailing until the Crochety Old Man started faking the hiccups, and then the drama started.

After the first five minutes of hearing him hiccup, you knew darned good and well he was faking it.  And after five minutes, the bingo players' patience wore pretty thin.  The people at the tables around him started yelling and cussing at him, but he just kept on hiccuping.  My dear friend Rosalee sitting next to me said "Maybe someone should scare him."  I turned around in my seat and said "He can look at my paycheck stub - that's sure to scare him.  Or if that isn't enough, he can look at my checkbook."  But even that didn't help.  The poor helpless woman calling bingo last night didn't know what to do - she just kept on calling out the numbers while people were going off on the Crochety Old Man.  People stared yelling "He's just faking it" and a woman sitting two seats down from him jumped up out of her seat, put her hand on her hip and loudly said "Damn right he is."  But the Crochety Old Man kept on faking the hiccups.  At this point, they didn't even sound like a good hiccup, either.  They sounded more like a squeak or yelp.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was actually about fifteen minutes) of the Crochety Old Man faking the hiccups, my friend Rosalee actually tossed her unopened bottle of water back to his table and hissed "Here - take a drink" and lo and behold, he took a drink of the water and the hiccups stopped.  It was truly a miracle  - a miracle on Lower Hunters Trace last night: the Crochety Old Man was healed of the hiccups by taking just one sip of water. It was truly a night I won't soon forget, no matter how hard I try.

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