Upside-Down Bingo
No, that isn’t a euphemism for the Texas Triangle, the Humpty-Bumpty, or the Hunka-Chunka.
Working a bingo on Saturday, I saw something I didn’t expect to see. A woman playing bingo with the cards upside down.
Rather than feeling ridicule, I was immediately stricken by an amazingly strong curiosity.
Why does this woman play bingo upside-down?
I came up with five possible answers for your reading enjoyment:
1) The realist in me figures she was either drunk or mentally confused and didn’t really have any idea what she was doing. This is the boring explanation, so I’ll press on.
2) The idealist in me thinks she might be a world-champion bingo player. Just the quickest most amazing number-dabber in the city, if not the whole country. She turns the bingo card upside-down to give herself an additional challenge, because there are no points for speed in Bingo.
3) The fantasist in me considers the possibility that she was the victim of a drive-by surgery, where her eyes were removed and put in upside-down, so that she has to play this way to see the numbers correctly. I’m not totally against this theory, but it is a little creepy, in a Pan’s Labyrinth kinda way, so I’m moving on quickly and quietly, so not to disturb the monster with eyes in its hands.
4) The romantic in me sees long years of this woman playing bingo with her husband, where they would both go and spend time together. Tragically, the man went blind, and they would continue to go to bingo and buy their own sheets, but the woman would dab her husband’s cards and tell him to call out bingo when he won. A couple of years ago, the husband died in the night. The woman stopped going out, stopped answering the phone, stopped eating, and had to be hospitalized. After she was sent home, having gone through counseling, she understood that she had to interact again – to get out and see people. She had friends at bingo, people who had called her, people who missed her. So, she went back to bingo. It felt wrong, that empty spot on the other side of the table, but she pressed on. In a flash, she realized what was so wrong. She flipped her bingo cards around, and it was like her husband was there again. She opened up, and all those people who had been her friends before were friends again. She laughed, and she won a couple bucks. So now, every time she goes, she plays her bingo cards upside down to help her remember the man she loved. This is my favourite explanation, playing out like some bittersweet something-or-other you’d hear about your mother reading/watching/listening to, and you’d say, “huh,” and go on with your life.
5) She won on Bonanza with upside-down cards once, and now she can’t play them right-side up ever again or she’ll never win again. This is the most likely explanation and isn’t as touching as #4, but it is the way that bingo players are.
Did I overthink this one? Yes. Do I overthink everything? Possibly. But it’s way more entertaining this way than just trudging along the bingo hall floor schlepping Satellite tickets.
Ok, now you are obligated to go back and work another bingo, find that lady and ask her why. This has me soo curious! I love your #4 option, but having worked in a smoky bingo hall as a kid and knowing how crazy some bingo players can be, my money is on some weird superstition.