Bingo anyone? Not me!

Disclaimer- No offense to bingo diehards. I just don't think I'm cut out for the game.

Okay, so on a whim, Simone and I went to a local Indian casino and decided to give bingo a try. Besides playing as kids,  neither of us had played with the "pros" before.  Let's step back for a second. We knew we were going to need something to mark our bingo spaces so Simone suggested we try the  Dollar Tree.  When we couldn't find the daubers, (we later learned that's what they're called) we started picking out colored highlighters.  Thankfully, we discovered the daubers before we headed to the check out counter or it might've been disasterous.  (More about daubers later.)  We arrived at the casino and  paid for 1 buy-in which is basically 12 bingo cards/games.  We walked into a banquet hall sized room filled with rows of tables with trash bags tied to the back of the chairs. We headed  to an empty table to take a  look at our cards. For some reason, there were no instructions so we had no idea what we were supposed to do.  (I know playing bingo isn't like brain surgery but it looked pretty intimidating). A nearby floor rep must've noticed our puzzled expressions and came over to try to explain things.  With a broken accent he tried his best to show us the ropes. I hoped Simone understood his directions because I was still clueless. As he walked away, we both started cracking up...apparently neither of us understood.

Meanwhile, people started coming in wearing coloful bingo shirts, carrying lucky charms and daubers of multiple colors.  Several of them even had special bingo bags  for their bingo gear.  It was apparent that Simone and I were in over our heads.  We decided to have another floor rep explain the basics. When I played bingo as a kid, a bingo was either a line down, straight across or diagonal. There was no such thing as a musical note, floating kites, lucky diamonds or a dog bone.  When the second floor rep couldn't shed any light, Simone and I were about ready to head for the exits.  I looked around the room and saw tons of hardcore players, and decided not to let them see me sweat.  So, we acted like we had a clue and started marking off our free spaces.  Honest to God, I think our table mates were smirking at us.  Simone told me that she saw them pointing at us like we were aliens or something.  We made one more attempt to get help from a floor rep, but he approached us looking pretty annoyed. I could've sworn he rolled his eyes as he walked away.

Finally, the lady sitting across from us had some compassion and showed us how to mark off each card according to the type of game that would be called during that round.  She gave us a few other pointers which was a big help.  As soon as the caller started calling numbers everything became total chaos. I had a hard enough time trying to track all of the numbers on 12 squares at once.  That was a challenge in itself.  I actually might've had a bingo but I was too busy trying to daub the numbers that were called. After the first, second and third game, we both decided that we were definitely outmatched.  Those diehards somehow managed to juggle multiple cards and were still quick to yell "Bingo". In the end we got our bingo bottoms beat.  Too much humiliation to endure for one night.

Simone and I walked away, feeling somewhat defeated and without ever coming close to a bingo.  We've mutually decided that the next time we have a whim, it's going to be something that we're really good at.  Either way, Simone lucked out and won a little bit playing the super nova slot machine.  That just might be our new calling.  Just in case, I think we'd better play it safe and stick with the penny slot machines. Did you have an adventure this weekend?