While visiting a friend in North Carolina, three of us went to the American Legion one night to play BINGO. I had never played an official game of BINGO (i.e., in public, with cash prizes), and was only familiar with the stereotype that playing BINGO is for old people. I thought of it as an activity that victims, often in wheelchairs, are coerced into only after their brains have turned to jello. I’m sure the level of the game depends on the venue and the specific caller, but there was a lot more mental work involved than I had anticipated.
In most games, each person was given eighteen BINGO cards to mark. The calling was fast-paced. In some games, the corner squares were designated as free spaces, and thankfully, more experienced players sitting near us told us that in advance so we could try and mark the corners before the game started. In some games, the caller would announce that certain numbers were “free.” (The free number might be “two, and any number that ends in two.”) After a period of time that was not nearly long enough, she’d ask if everyone was done marking the free spaces. I’m not sure why she bothered to ask- even when loud protests came from the audience, she barreled ahead. For each game, the winning numbers had to make a different and specific configuration of dots, so you not only had to keep up with marking your cards, but remember to periodically check the current winning configuration and see if that design materialized on your cards.
The most confusing part was that a ping pong ball with a number-letter combination would appear on TV monitors in the corners of the room, and the caller would call that number out loud only after she took the ball away and placed the next ball in front of the camera. So, she might call out “O-sixty-three!” and I’d instinctively look up at the monitor, only to see a ball with “I-24” written on it. So, if you wanted the number on the screen to match the number you were searching for, you had to work ahead of the caller, but you were already behind from trying to mark the free spaces.
During the game Speed BINGO, the caller said she wasn’t going to read letters- just numbers. She didn’t repeat any of them, and it was at a faster pace than normal. We each had two cards that we were in charge of marking, and I think even one would have been a challenge. During a normal game, she might call, “N-37, three seven, thirty-seven.” Then there would be a short wait, and then the next number would be called. During the speed game, it went more like this: “thirty-seven five fifty-eight eleven twenty-six nine forty-one seventy twenty-two sixteen.”
The most refreshing part of the experience was seeing tables with generations of families together: teenagers, moms, grandmothers. Yes, why not choose an activity that everyone involved is able to comfortably participate in? Why not spend one evening a week in the company of your extended family?
As far as the game itself, I think of those posters with photos of senior citizen athletes and the caption, “Growing old ain’t for sissies.” Beware, BINGO is not for the feeble-minded or faint of heart! BINGO is no joke!