Friday, November 20, 2009

A Crowded Shopping Center

So on a regular basis, I drive past this shopping center that's on a major road here in Louisville. It's not a big shopping center, and it's not in a great area of town (not a bad area, just not great either). Anyway, I often drive by this shopping center at 1-2 AM, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. I've noticed that most nights after 10PM the parking lot of this shopping center begins to get very crowded. And once midnight hits, you can't find a parking spot...seriously. Between the hours of midnight and 4 AM this shopping center is pretty much a hub of activity. So what's in this shopping center that draws such a late night crowd? Is it a bar, a club...a strip club? Perhaps something a bit more shady? None of the above.

This shopping center is the home of none other than Bingo City!!

Now I had to do a bit of research on this place because I had no idea what was going on, or how a place like Bingo City can draw that kind of crowd after midnight. Well, I looked it up and discovered they have several sessions. They have weekday and weekend sessions at 2 PM, 4 PM and 7:30 PM. But they also have Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday sessions beginning at Midnight. Yes, they have midnight bingo!! Now, I don't imagine this place is unique. I'm sure there was a place like this somewhere in St. Louis, probably within a few miles of where I grew up...but I never saw it.

Now I'm not going to go into too much detail about the schedule of this place or what all they do because I don't know what all the terminology of professional Bingo. But I looked further and further into what seemed like a pretty small website, and found links to Bingo halls all around the city. I was floored by this. There were dozens of them. Again, I realized Bingo is a big time game amongst the geriatric population, but do they really get out their doors at midnight for an all-night Bingo orgy? I guess so. Anyway, here's the link to the site. If I ever have the patience and testicular fortitude perhaps I'll venture into this center of elderly bliss.

As a final note, I've mentioned the Angry Video Game Nerd on several occasions. Well, the creator of that series is seriously a comic genius, so I've attached a brief clip from his website that's fantastic.