![Bowling alley and ribs](https://theconservativetake.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/bowling-ribs-300x169-1.jpg)
Certain foods are situational. Popcorn is never better than when youâre at a movie theater and even a terrible hot dog tastes better if you are at a ballpark. However, to this point, BBQ ribs shouldnât be anywhere near a bowling alley.
I didnât think anyone would need to be told this, but alas, here we are.
My bowling career is far from extensive. Iâm talking about a few birthday parties in my youth and a couple of hangouts with friends. That said, I know how to play. Although for the life of me, I canât understand how there are 10 frames of 10 pins, yet a perfect game is 300.
I donât care if thatâs how itâs scored; having 100 as the perfect score is a missed opportunity.
![](https://theconservativetake.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-AT3908-003-1024x687-1.jpg)
What I love about bowling is that itâs one of those sports like golf. When played recreationally, drinking isnât just allowed; itâs encouraged.
Hell, beer is practically a legal performance-enhancing drug. If you can get into that magical Goldilocks zone where the right amount of Coors Light, say hello to being an above-average athlete.
So, when my girlfriend and I were on a weekend vacation and our hotel had a bowling alley, I was all about getting ourselves a lane, a pair of shoes that Iâm sure someone with some kind of fungal infection has also worn, and a big olâ pitcher of beer to do that bowling.
I put on my clown shoes while my girlfriend typed our names on the scoreboard. I told her I wanted to be âPOOâ or âASSâ but she said no). Once I was laced up â technically velcro-ed â I grabbed the menu.
You see, this was one of those fancy bowling alleys. One where instead of going up to a concession stand and having to carry your grub back to your lane, this was the kind of place where you flagged the server down and they delivered it straight to you.
Classy.
We hit the call button and for a pitcher of beer â a necessary bit of sustenance if I was going to crack a 100 â when the server asked if we wanted any food.
I wasnât hungry, but that never stopped me from ordering food before. So I thought, âWhat the hell?â and looked at the food menu.
Food at a bowling alley is already a weird idea. Iâm not a germaphobe, but the idea of eating food just after sticking my fingers in communal bowling ball holes doesnât seem like the best idea.
Still, most of the time, they offer harmless fare like mozzarella sticks or chicken tenders.
Instead, what I saw horrified me. Specifically two items made me want to run out of the bowling alley screaming like I had just learned that Soylent Green was made of people: BBQ ribs and chicken wings.
![](https://theconservativetake.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-1302314665-1024x683-1.jpg)
Now, I love both of those foods. Iâm a believer that the reptilian part of our brain loves them because gawing meat straight from a bone puts us in touch with our caveman ancestors. However, both of those items are slathered in sauce. Sauce that gets on anything and everything that you touch. Even after you think youâve cleaned your miss throughout with a postage stamp-sized Wet Ones-brand wet one.
I knew I had the wherewithal to forego saucy foods. I just didnât trust my fellow man to have the same. Itâs the same reason I always look both ways when I drive through an intersection. I shouldnât have to, but I simply donât trust others.
How was I to know for sure that the bowling ball I picked off the rack hadnât last been used by someone who didnât see the problem with ordering ribs or chicken?
I didnât. That sent a chill down my spine.
Before every throw, a thought in the back of my head reminded me that someone slobâs saucy digits may have been in there too. Digits that they may have âcleanedâ with a quick, vain pass with a napkin or a few licks.
That torrent of thoughts threw me off my game in a big way.
Suffice it to say, my bowling performance was less than stellar. The prepared remarks I had drawn up to give to the newspaper if I bowled a perfect game were far from necessary.
I was dismayed that we live in an age where people think saucy foods and bowling could coexist.
Upon relaying this story to others I was dismayed to learn that this very thing had been explored on the most recent season of Itâs Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Blink and youâll miss it, but at around the 12-second mark, Danny DeVitoâs Frank is housing some chili cheese fries out of a bowling ball.
So the unsavory link between sloppy foods and bowling could not be more in the public consciousness. Itâs not like DeVito did that on an episode of Taxi. That episode of Itâs Always Sunny In Philadelphia premiered last month!
Youâd think that the folks drawing up bowling alley menus would make that call on their own. Theyâre the ones that have to mop spilled BBQ sauce off the hardwood and pick dried Tabasco gunk out of every single Brunswick bowling ball in the place.
Until bowling across the realize that are complicit in one of societyâs biggest problems, we must bowl in fear. Fear of getting our hands sticky from some other slobâs residual sauce.
Follow on X: @Matt_Reigle
The post Keep It Clean: Chicken Wings And Ribs Are Finger Foods, Not Bowling Foods | Matt Reigle appeared first on OutKick.