When desperate times call for desperate measures in Oklahoma, especially in today’s fragile economy, you’ve got one of two choices to keep the lights on: crime or gambling.
Having recently lost one of my bill-paying gigs and already living under very tenuous economic circumstances, instead of reaching for that .45 like a modern-day Dillinger, I instead reached for my smokin’ hot pair of pink and purple daubers and finally returned to the life I thought I had given up years ago…the life of a Saturday night bingo player.
While many young urban professionals might play a few rounds of bar trivia for a fun Monday night excursion, the God-fearing fringes of humanity that line the well-worn folding tables of every makeshift bingo hall from here to the panhandle ain’t some fair-weather fans looking for mild happy hour amusements; these are highly-trained professionals who treat this game of chance with all the dignity and professionalism of a second job and you best not get in their way.
When entering the fortified steel building that is Mini Ha Ha Bingo, 5401 S. I-35 Service Rd., the welcoming impenetrable wall of cigarette smoke might turn a weaker lot away, but what my pulmonologist don’t know hurt him, right? Take a step inside and breathe deep the nicotine-riddled atmosphere of tense awareness and nervous concentration as a preamble to the gamble, for these are solitary players of all races, sexes and weight classes, jumbo daubers at the ready, intent on only one thing: winning.