ArchivedLogs:One Part Egg, One Part Loose Interpretation Of Rules, Serve With A Dash Of Totally Responsible Parenting

One Part Egg, One Part Loose Interpretation Of Rules, Serve With A Dash Of Totally Responsible Parenting
Dramatis Personae Ion, Matt, Natalie, Frittata
In Absentia	2016-01-30 "You have pinned, and you will pin again, I'm sure."
Location <NYC> Alleycats - Little Italy
A throwback to an older era, Alleycats has been around in some form or other since its days as a private bowling club in the early 1900s. Still low-tech, bowlers are given pencil and paper scorecards to keep track of their score and their pins are only cleared and reset when they actually push a button to do so. There are no lane bumpers and the popularity and small size of the bowling alley -- only a dozen lanes with brightly blue and green lacquered wooden tables and cracking upholstery on their benches -- means that on evenings and weekends especially, wait times can get very long for a free lane. Most people opt to do their turn waiting in the adjoining cafe. Often noisy with the spillover from the adjacent lanes, the pizzeria looks more modern than the bowling alley itself. There's an industrial feel to the room's exposed architecture, solid blocky wood tables and benches, a long bar at one end with a very wide beer selection. The pizzas are all baked in full view of the dining room -- with a specialty in locally-grown organic flatbread pizza the dichotomy between the gourmet flatbread pizza and the old-fashioned alley alongside has made this locale a popular one with an unusual mix of company. It's raucous and noisy tonight; as the night stretches on the crowd sways away from families with children and more towards (increasingly inebriated) hipsters rubbing shoulders with (just as increasingly inebriated) firefighters and EMTs over at the bar. On a Saturday night the wait for a lane is getting crazy-long -- the people only coming in the door /now/ are being told they may have up to three hours before they actually get to play. Hence the levels of DRUNK. Ion /clearly/ had plenty of time to kill at the bar before they snagged their lane here; the bright-eyed electrokinetic is -- if no louder than usual, certainly /swaying/ more, a little stumbly, a little bit /crackling/ as he drops back down onto a bench beside a baby carrier. "/Yoooooo/ {/monster/ did you /see/ that?}" He is asking Egg this, earnestly. Wide-eyed. BRIGHT-smiled. "/Bam/. How many pins I pinned." Natalie is tucked into the bench on the other side of Egg's carrier, tapping the butt end of a cheap stubby plain pencil against the scorecard in front of her. She eyes the infant. Eyes the lane. Eyes Ion, lifting her hand to her lips to hide a smirk. Then drops her hand, not bothering to hide it. "Two. Ion, that was two." Her brows lift. "At least you get to throw again?" "You have pinned, and you will pin again, I'm sure." Matt is being ever so encouraging (if less than specific about /when/ Ion will "pin again"). Sitting beside Natalie, he wears a seafoam green t-shirt with a gigantic white sperm whale curled beneath an eight-pointed star over a teal long-sleeve shirt and faded old blue jeans, their cuffs ragged from dragging on the ground. "Which is /possibly/ more than I can say for myself," he adds, green eyes skidding aside toward his own score. He's nursing a large basket of greasy french fries and a light-colored beer of some sort. "I think Natalie might be our only hope of not leaving here in ignominy." "{/Two/ what.}" Ion sounds /indignant/ at Natalie's assessment of his two pins. "That gotta be at least." Frown. "... three." He stares down the lane, finally shaking his head and claiming a ball. Hefting it. "Tiny dragon, I should just send /you/ down the lane. You get /all/ the pins for me, huh? -- Issok, brother, Natalie she can have all the pins I'mm'a get another pizza then I be the /real/ winner." Though kind of droopy, sleepy-eyed, Egg's wings stretch up out of the carrier at this, claws hooking on its edge as if they'll pull themselves up /right/ then and there to go on this ATTACK mission. "Two," Natalie confirms, tapping the pencil against the scorecard again indicatively. "And I don't think sending your baby down the lane is -- /exactly/ in the rules." The grin she turns to Matt is not at all apologetic at the disparity in scores. She lifts her own dark beer in salute to him. "I grew up in Syracuse. You know how little there is to do in Syracuse? You pretty much have to get good at /every/ sport that happens over beer." "I'm not sure the child understands how to play this game," Matt hedges, though his skeptical glance is going to /Ion/, as if he's not all that sure if the /father/ understands, either. "Oh, but I want pizza, too." The fries still in front of him notwithstanding. "I've never been to Syracuse. Did you have curling there? That's a popular drunken sport up north." "The fuck is a Syra cue you make up non... sense. You say you grow up upstate." Ion has picked the /sparkliest/ of the bowling balls, of course, silvery sparkling swirls across its shimmering blue surface, but now he hands it over to Natalie instead. He scoops Egg out of their carrier, wandering across the smooth alley floor to deposit Egg at the mouth of the lane. "OK see. You gotta go. All the way down. And kill /every/ one them pins." Egg is determined, in this. Spindly legs scrabbling, wings bracing to pull them into an ungainly six-legged crawl -- that starts to slip and slide when their talons lack for purchase on the slick floor of the bowling lane. They're barely any length down the lane at all when they slip sideways, toppling into the gutter. Natalie slumps lower in her bench, shoulders shaking as she bursts out laughing. "Oh. Oh my fucking..." Her eyes scrunch shut. "They definitely inherit /your/ skill at this, man. -- Can you. /Corral/ them," she asks of Matt without a whole lot of /hope/. "I'm getting us a menu. If we're lucky, even a server." "Syracuse is...a /part/ of upstate. You know, like the Bronx is a part of the city." Matt's Teacher Mode doesn't last very long, though. He, too, dissolves into laughter at Egg's short-lived career as a bowling dragon, covering his mouth with one hand. "Oh no, gutter egg!" He takes a long swing of his beer before standing up. "Sure, I've got this." Though /he's/ not all that steady on his feet, either. Stretches out a hand to steady himself against Ion. "C'mon, we should put them back in their seat before the other patrons get scared." There are already other patrons outright staring at the ungainly clawed goblin-creature scuttling in the alley; a few louder voices, one shriek that manages to carry over the music and roll of balls and clatter of pins. "/Frittata/ oh no. Shit. Maybe this why balls ain't Egg-shaped." Ion is just guffawing when Egg utterly fails to knock down any of his pins, either. He stumbles to the side when Matt comes up to lean against him, throwing out a hand towards his futilely scrabbling child. "Oh shit. Oh shit I still got a throw. That one don't count, huh?" He's nodding toward Egg. Then squinting back towards Natalie. "/Part/ of upstate? Wait there more than one part? Oh /man/ can you get one with a, a, a artichokes?" "There are," Natalie has tucked Ion's SHINY bowling ball into her lap, resting her beer bottle atop it. She ticks off on her fingers, one, two -- "at least three different parts in upstate New York. There's, uh, you've got the mountains, and then you've got the shitty ugly dystopia buildings, and then you've got South Canada." She sets her beer back on the table, still holding the bowling ball as she gets up to slip away from the table to find a menu. "Think you're too late on that scared part, by the way." "Oh, no," this seems to be Matt's new catchphrase. "I'm getting them, I'm getting them. No throwing any balls just yet." He walks past Ion and past the foul line to scoop Egg up--carefully, though perhaps not as carefully as he could manage while sober--and deliver them back into the child seat. "South Canada would be where they do the curling." "She took my damn /ball/. What the fuck /curling/ {you make that /up/ dude} giving /perms/ not a sport." Egg has hooked their clawed wings around Matt's arm, latching on to try and pull themself closer. Small nuzzle. Ion is sliding back to retrieve a /different/ ball, one of the largest, this time. He's weaving noticeably as he heads back to just /hurl/ it with a heavy thunk down the lane. This time, it knocks over -- one more pin. Ion pumps BOTH fists victoriously in the air as he stumbles back to topple into the bench beside Natalie. Natalie returns in short order, menu in hand. She looks /about/ as triumphant over this fact as Ion does over his single downed pin. "Artisan goat cheese," she declares, slapping the menu down on the table. "That sounds like a /thing/?" Questioning lift of eyebrows. "Curling's a real sport, man. Play it on /ice/. With --" Here she hesitates, smile slanting crookedly before admitting: "-- brooms. I guess it's like, a witch sport. Canadian witches. Ice-witches." Matt is not quite inebriated enough to fall for Egg's show of affection. "You do /not/ want my blood, tiny vampire," he informs the infant as he straps them back into their seat. "It's full of /toxins/ right now." He looks up in time to see Ion's second throw hitting its mark. "Well done!" He drops back into his seat and stuffs a handful of french fries into his mouth, gesticulating wildly in reply to Ion's question until Natalie answers it for him. About half-way through her explanation he starts nodding vigorously and signing, 'Right, right, right!' After chewing and swallowing, he elaborates with, "/Drunken/ ice witches." "Blood always full on toxins when they eat." Ion reaches over, tucking a soft blanket snugly up over Egg and pressing a (slightly zappy) kiss between their horn nubs. "{Maybe later, Matt'll teach you to be an ice witch, yeah? Now, sleep.} -- Don't forget to mark that. Them pins," he enjoins Natalie /earnestly/. He leans back in his seat, swiping his own beer off the table to raise it to Matt. "Fff. /Drunken/ ice -- shiiit, boy, you just describing yourself now. Hopefully some that magic help your roll. Think you up, hermano."