Couple of quick stories...
1) Open bowling/people using my stuff: I was bowling IN LEAGUE one night and looked down and my spare ball was gone. I look a couple of lanes over to where some open bowlers were, a couple in their 40s and three kids under the age of about 12, and there it was. So I go over to get it and the mother says, "He's using that," pointing to her 8-year-old.
Now, this is a 16-pound GemTek ball we're talking about here, drilled fingertip with grips. But I ignore the stupidity of that comment and just say, "I know, but it's my ball -- he picked it up from our pair of lanes."
And she says: "OK..........so what's the problem?"
The husband, by this time, is looking at me as if waiting to decide whether he's going to take a swing at me if I backtalk his wife. But I still said, "Well, not only was I using it already, but that is my ball -- as in, I brought it here from home. I own it. He needs to use one of the rental balls back there on that rack."
She turned and looked at the house rack bewilderedly, and I just picked up my ball and left.
2) EZ-Slide: Kids may be the "problem generation" but the worst EZ-Slide story I have concerned a woman in her 60s. I was bowling in Tennessee and this lady, every week, would pound an EZ-Slide bag against the sole of her shoe three or four times before getting up on the lane every shot. Dust would be flying around her like she'd just got gassed.
I'd already decided to say something about it the first week we bowled her team, but someone beat me to the punch, a 20-ish guy three times even my size (and I ain't small) and probably 10 times her size. He said, politely, "Ma'am, you can't use that stuff. It's not legal."
"I'll use whatever the h*ll I want to," she said. And he backed down.
A couple of weeks later, one of her own teammates slipped and busted a** on the approach and had to stay home for a couple of weeks with a wrenched back. Upon his return -- and he was the team captain, not her -- he called a league meeting to handle this. Not just a team meeting (I would have told her adios), a LEAGUE MEETING.
He said he'd tried to tell her and she'd just blow him off, so basically he got the whole league together for backup. After it was confirmed to her EZ-Slide was against the rules, she whined about not wanting to stick and how she might hurt herself. But rules are rules.
She continued to use it, but would do it behind the pit area before walking down to the approach (still illegal). A couple of weeks later, someone else busted a** on her pair. And again, she told the league officer who said something to her about it, "I will use whatever I want to." As far as I know, she's still on that league and still on that team.
And I saved the best for last: She throws the ball 6 mph and DOESN'T EVEN SLIDE.
Jess
