Anniversarus horriblus? Nahhh.

Last Friday was my five-year anniversary. While traditional five-year anniversary gifts usually involve a wood item of some sort, like furniture or a clock, we haven't really followed "tradition" vis-a-vis our marriage. Instead, we played bingo. The local American Legion has bingo on Friday nights, and we had our wedding reception at the Legion, so it wasn't like *no* thought went into the planning of our anniversary. And we both had a great time, unless my wife is lying to me.

Besides, what happened at bingo definitely made for a memorable evening.

There is a woman in our town who, if you're from anywhere around here, you probably know of. I don't know this for a fact, but I believe she has a very mild degree of retardation; still, she functions quite well. She walks around town a lot, and is generally harmless, if at times loud and boisterous - this may be due to frustration because no one can really understand what she's saying.

Shirley (not her real name) was at bingo that night.

Like so many of the other patrons, Shirley was all decked out in bingo regalia. Most bingo crowds are full of serious bingo enthusaists; they have the handmade bags with various bingo insignia on them, with 6 or 7 pockets for each of their different colored bingo daubers. Maybe a couple of people will have a knitted bingo sweater or a bingo jacket. In addition, the hardcore bingoers will have various paraphernelia on them - good luck charms, etc. (Shirley even had a little red stop sign on a stick that read "bingo" that she could wave when she got a bingo - an item that did not come into use that night, as you will see.) Suffice it to say that if bingo kitsch turns your stomach, then you probably shouldn't go to bingo night.

After the early-bird games and the first set of real games for bigger money ($50 to the winner), there was a 10-minute intermission for the smokers present, since the Legion bingo hall is now smoke-free. Following the smoke break, Wife and I made our way back to our seats, where we overheard this conversation nearby:

"The women's restroom is closed. Someone shit on the floor."

And then we heard *this* in a separate conversation following that one:

"Yeah, it was probably Shirley. She goes into the women's room and shits on the floor when she doesn't win."

(This isn't outside the realm of possibility, by the way. Out of the 60 or so the people at bingo that night, if there was someone to be voted "Most Likely To Shit On The Floor To Spite The People Running The Bingo Game Because She's Not Winning," it would have been Shirley.)

Anyway, Wife and I processed these two bits of information and then went on about our bingo.

About 15 minutes later, in the middle of a game, I turned to my wife and and said matter-of-factly, "... So. She shits on the floor, huh?"

We lost it.

We laughed for a solid 10 minutes, till we were both crying. Couldn't keep track of our numbers or anything, and were just a general distraction to the people around us. It was great.

Wife and I eventually calmed down. Then, about 15 minutes later, she starts laughing again. I figured she was still laughing about the previous.

She leaned over to me and said "Shirley .... Shirley ...." and couldn't get the rest of it out because she was laughing so hard. Eventually, she composed herself enough to let me know that Shirley had coughed out her false teeth. More hilarity ensued.

If I'd ever believed that the laughter had disappeared from our marriage, it took our five-year anniversary at a bingo hall to disabuse me of that notion.