JCVD Life Lesson #7: How to Fall Down at Bowling

We went bowling Friday night. Cosmic bowling, in fact, and it was everything you could ever hope bowling to be and more. The first game passed fairly uneventfully, but the second game was where the action was. No less then you would expect, I gather, as both shenanigans, patience, and clumsiness need a little warm-up time.

The first roll of the second game I gauged my approach; I held my shiny green ball under my chin and stood, looking to all the world like I might be the sort of person that bowls a mean game. At least, that’s how I narrated my appearance in my head. Sometimes I like to imagine myself as a kind of rockstar, or at least schooled in the arts of Kung Fu. I began to move forward, stepping with my left foot, swinging the ball back, and then...both my knees hit the floor with all of my considerable weight and bowling force behind them as my arm continued to swing forward. The ball rocketed down the lane veering sharply to the left as my arms flew forward in something eerily like a Superman pose. My chest slammed down next creating a fully splayed picture of me, half of which was now lying in bowling grease.

There are moments in life where you don’t have the good fortune to belly flop while bowling in private. Sometime you bruise both knees and land in grease with the sort of graceless explosion of a sea lion jumping on land. When these moments come all you can do is laugh and hope that you won’t have to go to the emergency room with a busted knee because you fell down while bowling. A person wants to have been leaping out of the way of danger, narrowly missing an explosion after secretly saving the country, or, at the very least, have been diving for a falling baby. You don’t want to explain to the emergency room people that for one second you lost the ability to move without falling and were now broken because of it.

But I’ve recovered from my spill (mostly). It seems I must only suffer with two bruised knees and a carpal tunnel wrist that hates me when I bowl for a day or two before all will be well again. And I think to myself “what would JCVD do?” Would he give up on his bowling career? No. There would anger, gritting of teeth, and promises of revenge. There would be a training montage and screams of pain while he learned how to do the splits. Maybe you never knew the splits were needed when bowling, but JCVD would show us why. He would also lose his shirt in a freak bowling accident that would only enhance the awesomeness of his final bowl to victory.

I’m not going to learn how to do the splits and let’s hope I don’t lose my shirt, but I am going to make a triumphant return to bowling. And I will break 100. Because that, my friends, is how I roll. JCVD has shown me the way!