I don’t play bingo and I don’t decry anyone that does but I don’t play for two main reasons. One it turns the most placid person into a “road rage monster” – you know like the normal quiet person who gets behind the wheel and starts behaving like a menopausal tiger.
The second reason is that I am suffering from post traumatic bingo stress disorder. Even though it happened many years ago, the flashbacks are still horrific. I was in a club near Coalville that had the unlikely name of Hugglescote Working Men’s Club one Sunday dinner. My mate was a member and he was playing bingo and gave me his card to mark while he went to the toilet. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was winning the full house. As soon as I shouted a very large lady, and I use the term loosely, with no teeth came storming over and poking me in the chest many times screamed and spat (literally) the words “YOU’RE NOT a MEMBER – YOU CAN’T HAVE THE MONEY.” My mate was stood in the doorway laughing his head off, So that is why I don’t play bingo having nearly been killed because of it.
Fast forward to last Wednesday – my first bingo shift at the club. I have a trainee director with me – the other director having been voted off. I arrive early and set myself up with bingo sheets and computer programs etc. and wait. The main bingo bobby has not turned up. I ring him and he is not coming. Apparently he let someone know but they didn’t let me know. I can’t find any keys to get cash boxes and bingo tickets. I ring the main bingo bobby again and he comes down to open up the hallowed portals. Crisis one averted.
Coronation Street finished and the flurry of customers increases to a deluge. The woman selling bingo who is a regular, is swamped and demands a drink from the club and I placate her. The money comes upstairs and the bingo caller tells me that the bingo computer is not working. I haven’t got time to deal with it because I have to count all the money up and get the second half payout ready along with making the jackpots up so I get the emergency bingo machine out of the emergency bingo cupboard. At least that hadn’t changed in the six years since I last did it.
Myself and the director start to count the money when the phone rings. The emergency bingo machine has stopped working. I rush downstairs to the hall only to be told that it was OK it was working again. She had pressed the wrong button. So I rush back to the office to count the money.
I make up the second half payout but I overpay £10 on the second flyer without realising it. My money is now £10 down and I can’t find it. In the break the woman who has all the prize money comes up and says that I have overpaid the second flyer but not to worry, she will pay £20 for a line. I tell her that she will pay £10 and give me the tenner back. We get into an argument about it and finally I tell her to “just do as she is told.” “OOOh!” she says, what’s the matter with you!” I finally get my tenner back.
By now the urine infection is taking hold. I go to the toilet several times and just do a dribble and the pain is getting worse. I have the jackpot envelopes out of the safe where I have made the money up – one of them is nearly £1000 and I tell the director that I am not putting them away until bingo is finished because it is bound to be won tonight knowing my luck.
Suddenly what has been described as a swarm of wasps appears in the office with about a dozen women all shouting at once and waving their arms. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I shout over the cacophony. “One at a time so I can understand what the problem is.” The rabble start again. “ I can’t understand you” I tell them and finally they quieten down.
It appears the caller has pressed the button and number 62 has come out but for some reason she didn’t call it. A woman was waiting for 62 for the £960 (plus £100) jackpot. I still haven’t understood how it was discovered but finally the woman shouts on number 62. The bingo caller’s name was mud but what was worse was that half the players said she was entitled to be paid out and half said that if she did get paid out they were walking out.
All of a sudden the swarm disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. One of the Trustees poked his head through the door, “There’s hell on down there,” he says, “You want to go down and sort it out.” Not bloody likely. The prodding in the chest flashbacks start again. My urine infection is getting worse. I ask the director who is in the office with me if he has got his car. He says he has and I tell him to start it. “Why where are we going?” he asks. “Trent Bridge” I tell him “I am going over the side and into the Trent!”
When I got home after swallowing several extra large valium, the infection really started. I was out of bed every ten minutes and the pain was unbelievable. I have just finished a course of auntibiotics but there is still a bit of a twinge when I have a pee. I don’t think I have heard the last of it.
