OH BOY .... BINGO!!

 Can you feel the enthusiasm?  Oh yes ... another wonderful, glamorous night on the blue carpet.  It started out like any other day, full of surprises.  I got my P G & E bill.  I almost went into shock.

I've had no bills for the past two years, other than the minimum $15.00 payment.  Wasn't I surprised to find the bill was $279.00 last month.  I think I mentioned while I was gone, even though I set the thermostat to 60 degrees, I found the fancy dancy thermostat at 67 when I got home,  That was a month of  freezing cold weather here.  Okay ... I paid it.  

So THIS month I was sure it would be zero.  NOPE ... even though I turned the thermostats down, the bill was again $290.00.  A little investigation provided the answer.  It was for natural gas ONLY.  Since the middle of November to now, the price has skyrocketed in California since we are paying for all those fires.  And so you can probably feel the shivering as I type.  If you're cold, wear a COAT!!  There are too many other things I would like to spend my money on!

The good news is the solar is working overtime and the electricity for those heaters cost me nothing!  YAY!  And so the appointed came and went, as I rushed off to Bingo, the infernal machine in tow.

I literally ran with it through the door, down the steps and to my awaiting table, where I instantly plugged it in.  I wasn't taking any chances by leaving it unplugged for any length of time.  IT WORKED!!  Oh the relief!!

After signing a bunch of checks upstairs, I retrieved the backup machine, set up in the Bingo room and went to work.  There are not as many keys to program on this one (it is not the same model), so I thought it would be easy.  HA!!!  

After several mistakes, I finally got it set up.  I even grabbed a knife to pop the keys off and change out the words so I knew which keys were which.  I changed out the batteries, but weirdly, it said NO BATTERY.  I tried it again.  NO BATTERY.  It was a sign. 

Sure enough, I unplugged it and plugged it back in immediately.  They usually keep their head on straight for the 60 second trip to the safe where they live.  

In a NANOSECOND ... the infernal thing lost all that programming I spent an hour doing.  If I had a pitchfork, I would have stabbed it to death!!  And so I stuck him back in the safe, in the far back corner where he will sit until I can figure out the battery part.  Infernal Machine 2 wins!!  I could hear him snickering!!

And so we were off once again into the land of Bingo, short about 7 volunteers.  Everyone is sick with one thing or another.  It's okay though .. I would rather do twice the work than have them pass it around to all of us.  

The night went well for the first hour, until one lady won THREE bingos in a row.  Yikes!!  They brought flame throwers on this night!  It truly is the luck of the draw.  The stacks get out of order quickly when they take five minutes going through every single one to find the perfect card.  This lady just took the top two.  

It took a bit to calm everyone down before continuing on.  At least until the food fight erupted.  Someone went to the kitchen counter and picked up an order that was not theirs.  There's no excuse since your name is on the tag next to the food.  The King jumped in quickly on that one, because none of us wanted to clean up a big mess.  She was sufficiently chastised and new orders were prepared.  I guess I'd be mad if someone stole my corn dog too! 

At least on this day there were no boinking problems.  You can tell the lady in the bottom right of the above picture is a pro.  She pays to be a member so she can bring her tilt-boards in and set up in this exact spot every time.  She's a sweetheart unless someone tries to take her spot.  This is serious business!!  Not that she wins by sitting there ..... it's just HER chair!!

The rest of the night passed without incident.  Lucky for me, the newly programmed Infernal Machine balanced to the penny.  I guess we will have to change that to "balanced to the nickel" from now on.  

I arrived home in one piece to the barking whirling dervish that is my sweet puppy.  It's always a treat to see his happy face.  Until next time Bingo!!