Last night we went bowling at Minnehaha Lanes with Nick and Shelley. I'd never been there before, but luckily for us — no one else seemed to remember exactly where it was — I see the place every day on my drive to work.

Ah, bowling. I could take it or leave it, in all honesty, and I haven't been out bowling since the days of our amateur college bowling team rivalry against the Viscous Cycles. I can't remember our team name, but it was probably hilarious. Or lame? Was it just some wacky combination of our names?

I've never been great at bowling, have never developed a technique not modeled after a cartoon character, but I've patched together a passable ability like the proverbial carpet-remnant prom dress — and after a poor initial showing, I won the second game with a 132.

(Not that it would have mattered too much, as those who've played any games against Trash-Talking Dan could testify: the stuff peripheral to the game, like booze and camaraderie, is far more important than any temporary victory. Otherwise, my losses to Ben at the Mario Kart Drinking Game or Alan at Illuminati would have long since destroyed my soul.)

Anyways, the key drama last night had little if anything to do with bowling.

We'd been told to go to lane 21, but initially set up in lane 20 and had to move our stuff when we noticed what we'd done. No stranger to Jenna's forgetfulness, I grabbed what I thought was her little green coat and set it on the lane 21 bench when I retrieved my ball.

No one else noticed what I'd done, and when a man came back and spotted the coat (his daughter's) I realized my mistake, apologized, explained myself, and gave it back. He checked the pockets and walked away. The incident was finished, or so we thought.

Moments later: enter the Shrew.

"Why'd you try to steal a little kid's coat?!?" She demanded, filled with alco-rage. "What kind of person would do that?!"

For all our attempts to (re)construct it later, everyone's recollection of the Incident seemed to differ. I remember the Shrew insulting the neighborhood, and my refusing to stand up for it, and all of us generally not taking her very seriously since we'd already explained ourselves and she had the coat back. She mentioned a $300 Game Boy Advance (presumably signed by Miyamoto himself) that we could have been trying to steal... but clearly had not.

Still, the mere idea enraged her.

At one point I explained myself again and the husband said, "Yeah, I almost believe you." There's some controversy among scholars as to whether he was hinting that he did, in fact, believe us, and that this was just his crazy wife talking, but at the very least he egged the woman on. The Shrew threatened to call the police.

At one point, Nick got into a bit of a shouting match with the Shrew; he later opined that he needed to periodically vent his rage, that he had been invigorated by the unnecessary argument. For my part, I find that life's ugliness just sticks to me until I can get over it or forget it; however, I can understand this tea-kettle mindset. In fact, I'm a bit jealous.

The argument was the talk of the bowling alley for at least an hour afterwards. The group of people who'd initially lost the coat (dubbed "the Squares" when we'd noticed them before the Incident) were spotted muttering about it on the other end of the bowling alley. A waitress expressed astonishment that we had been the dirty, dirty thieves she'd heard about. And the twenty-somethings next to us cracked some lighthearted jokes at the Shrew's expense — always refreshing to encounter cool strangers.

For reasons that remain unclear, Shelley and Nick weren't allowed to bowl their last two frames, and we decamped to what remained of our pitcher — and some surprisingly good karaoke — in the alley's bar.

After that the course of the night was routine: cigarettes for the smokers, Puzzle Fighter for everyone, and so forth. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.