Post by Dave on Apr 17, 2013 16:56:46 GMT
I knew before we set off for Swansea on Saturday morning, what plans Lyn and her mum had made for the Sunday evening. It had slipped my mind, well that was until 18.30pm Sunday evening when Lyn piped up “we are off to bingo are you coming with us”. I certainly did not fancy staying at home all alone and so I said yes and asked how much it was going to cost.
We get six books at a cost of £25 came the reply, bloody hell I almost fell off the chair I was sitting on. “Do I get shares in Mecca for that price” I asked. “You can have only three books for £12.50 if you want “Lyn’s mum told me. The very thought of just trying to keep up using just three books scared me half to death I can tell you.
WE drove to the Mecca building and I had to join before I was allowed in, I could not believe the computer they were using, was unable to find my post code and so it all had to be done manually.
All joined up and my £12.50 paid, (still in shock parting with that much money for a game of bingo) with my three books in hand in I walked. The first part I had to walk through was full of gaming machines and boy were they being fed well. Then into the main room and I was shocked to see how big it was and just how many people were already sat down at the tables.
Once I was sat down at our chosen table the first thing I noticed was the built in bingo card on the table itself. Then I noticed the slot meter that needs to be fed to use that built in bingo card. I had to wait a while before a good number of these pound a go bingo games took place before I could get down to playing a game using the books I have purchased.
They did give me this rather nice looking marker type pen for me to use to cross out my numbers. I had to wait for the fourth number to be called out before I could bring the said pen into action. Only problem was I was so heavy handed with the bloody thing gallons of ink seem to come out that almost wiped out the whole card.
Now when I had been to bingo once before and so long ago now, you had a man waiting for the balls to come out and then reading out the number on the ball. Well those days seem to be gone in this modern age of computers and the numbers get shouted out now faster than the speed of sound.
I found myself struggling to keep up and so decided to try and just listen to the first part of the number and look down the column that number might be in If I had it on my card. I’m not sure if it really worked as Lyn and her mum always seemed to have far more numbers crossed out when “HOUSE” was shouted than I ever did.
I was also surprised just how many pages there were in the book I had (well I had two books really and also another card for the big national bingo game). I looked at them all and thought just how long is all this going to take. I knew I was very likely to get bored after only marking a few of the pages. No sooner had I worked through a small number of the pages a break was called and it was back to those one pound games using the built in card on the table. I did not play any of these games and being a smoker went through a door into the outdoor smoking area.
I may have been outside but I found myself caged in and even worse than that there were rows of machines with those built in bingo cards in them. Woman smokers (it was mostly woman at the venue) were almost breaking out into fights to get to one of those machines and start feeding them with pound coins. I worked out (maybe wrong) that for every one hundred playing those cash games, only £46 is paid back in prize money. I wonder how much was made on the night on those cash games alone.
I took a good look at all those who were there playing bingo, none looked very rich and yet some of them must have spent a small fortune just trying to win something on the night.
Time to go back inside and play a few more games on those cards I bought, it was not to long before another break was called and that's how it went on all night.
Between the three of us only one of us won anything all night, it was Lyn’s mum who got a line, only problem was so did three others and her total prize money was a massive £7.50. We had all agreed to share any prize money won on the night, but told the dear lady to keep all those winnings for herself.
So now I’m a full Mecca bingo club member, but somehow I do not think I will be rushing over to the nearest one in Torquay any day soon. I also do not think I will ever complain about the cost of attending a football match in future.