Bingo

I am laughing as I type this and I wonder how long this story will take to write as I start to tear up from the giggles. This is not my story to tell, but it has brought me so much joy that I have to share it. My mom does not mind me sharing even though it is definitely her most embarrassing moment from during my childhood, minus the flower shop, but that is a whole different story I may write about later.

Bingo was a pastime for a lot of people in the 90’s and that is where our story begins. My mother often went to bingo when I was a kid. She was a stay-at-home mom for three children. Bingo was the one thing she did to get out of the house after maintaining a household and family. This day however would be one that would almost change what she did as a hobby, or in public in general.

When my mom got to Bingo, everything started out how it usually did. She went up to the card booth and picked out the cards she would be playing. After the card booth she headed to the concession to grab a snack which included her favorite chocolate bar, a Cookies & Cream Hershey bar. When she got back to her table, she set up her area, flagged down a bonanza girl and waited for the first game to start.

After a game or two she noticed the lady sitting beside her grab a piece of her chocolate bar. My mother was appalled, but she didn’t want to say anything about it to her. She just shrugged it off, she could share and she didn’t think it would happen again. As the games went on this lady just kept taking pieces of my mom’s chocolate bar. She had let it go the first time, but my mom’s anger at the audacity of this woman just kept building and building. Finally, as the lady went to grab the last of the pieces, my mother being passive aggressive, but also at the end of her rope, grabbed the last 2 pieces and shoved them in her mouth. She dramatically chewed them right in the lady's face. The lady just sat there mortified at the fact that she had been caught eating someone else’s chocolate bar.

The last of the games was spent in an extremely awkward silence. Finally, to the relief of both women, bingo was over and everyone shuffled out of the bingo hall into the parking lot. My mother left in a hurry with her head down, having felt bad for Standing up so boldly to the lady who had eaten her chocolate bar.

As she walked to her car, she thought about it. That lady deserved it. Who does that? Who steals pieces of someone else's chocolate bar and eats it while they are sitting right next to them? My mom smiled as she thought about the lesson, she had shown her, how that lady would think twice about stealing from someone ever again.

My mom was feeling very triumphant as she was just about to reach her car. She opened her purse as she was walking to get her keys. She was almost brought to her knees with what she saw.

There in her purse sitting on top of everything was her Cookies & Cream chocolate bar. She had never even taken it out of her bag. She felt sick to her stomach, but couldn’t help but laugh. She had taken and chewed the last two pieces of a strangers chocolate bar right in her face. Right in her face, no wonder she had looked so mortified at the whole situation. Mom burst into full body laughter, after all what else was there to do.