Cosmic Bowling and The Tamagotchi

Emily and I are sitting around her living room, Christmas decorations now two days past due line the tables and walls. She’s curling her hair, I’m scrolling through something on the internet, and neither of us has mentioned bowling probably for weeks.

Mike emerges from the bathroom, his hair wet from the shower and a toothbrush in his mouth. “I really want to go cosmic bowling,” he says to us.

“What?” Emily asks.

“You know, cosmic bowling. At that bowling alley off 18. With the lights,” Mike explains.

“Yeah, but no one said anything about bowling.”

“I know. The urge just hit me.”

“You know: We actually used to go cosmic bowling all the time, like, every year for birthdays. Lucas’s one friend has a birthday on New Year’s Eve and we’d always go cosmic bowling for that.”

Mike nods in understanding.

Emily stands up now, her curls falling down her shoulders. “One year,” she says, “While Lucas was cosmic bowling with his friends, my mom and dad took me to K-Mart to go buy a Tamagotchi. I don’t know why we went to K-Mart.”

I laugh a little while simultaneously realizing that I’m being watched by one of those wooden frogs with a ribbed back that makes a noise when you run a wooden stick along it. It’s sitting on the end table beside me, the stick in it’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Emily continues, “I kept getting in trouble because I’d go into my book bag in class to feed it. This was in, like, 4th grade.”

We all nod because we’ve all been there with Tamagotchis.