Era-DICK-ator

A group of my coworkers and I went bowling after work on Friday night. Though I haven't bowled in around 8 years or so, I used to go kinda regularly, back in New Jersey. It wasn't so much that I liked the game or anything, or was remotely skilled at it. It was more that I liked the white-trashy atmosphere created by playing a sport where you could drink and smoke while playing the game, and I liked people-watching in a place where characters were much more colorful than in my everyday suburbia.

Of course, this was in the time where you could still smoke indoors, and when you are bowling, you kinda have to smoke or drink, in order to get into the true spirit of the game. If you've seen The Big Lebowski, you know what I mean.

These days in LA, the smoking part of the game has to be done outside, in between frames. Our lane was at the end of the room, right next to the door, so I was able to take frequent breaks in between kicking my coworkers' asses at knocking down pins (apparently, once I put a few White Russians in me, my new bowling persona, Jersey Jodi, comes out, making me a 10-pin goddess).

I snuck out about half-way through our game, to find a scrawny man screwing with his car in the parking lot outside. He had some souped up Pontiac or something, with doors that open upwards, like the 80s DeLoreans did. While I watched, he closed the doors with a prideful flourish... then proceeded to set off the car alarm and fumble with the key for about a minute trying to figure out how to turn it off. I watched the display with amusement, and then noticed the guy's vanity license plate. On it was a clumsily-rendered, license-plate version of the word "Eradicator," but it wasn't done in so logical or obvious a way that you'd be sure what he was going for.

The guy finally got the alarm to turn off, and walked towards the bowling alley door. He mumbled something as he was passing me about not knowing how to work the door right yet. I nodded my head in a "whatever, loser" kinda way, and asked him if his license plate was supposed to say Eradicator.

His response?

"Yeah. Coz I kill things."

Seriously. He was so trying to be bad-ass, I guess to make up for looking like a moron who can't work his own needlessly accessorized car. At this point, I started cracking up to the point where I nearly fell over. When the tears finally dried in my eyes, I went back to the lanes to share this priceless convo with my coworkers.

I wonder how often this cheeseball has used that line. Or if he was just waiting for someone to see his car, see the license plate and set him up for what he built up in his mind to be the comeback-spike of all comeback-spikes. I'm just glad I got to witness the glory, and reminded myself to NEVER leave a bowling alley without my video camera. That shit would have made a priceless video for YouTube.