We are walking in about 20 minutes after the games have begun. We are entering mid-sentence, laughing over something, cash at the ready to jump right in the fun. We are hit with a palpable wall of animosity. We are 20 minutes and we have distracted these people, we have broken some kind of code of conduct because our party of six is loud and laughing and the bingo players are not. They are intense. I hate to use the word desperate but will attempt to soften it by saying, there is a self-imposed desperateness in the air. Their faces register surprise, then quickly show anger. We are unwanted.

Things get no better when we see the place is packed and we will have to separate into 3 sets of three, which we do, still giggling and talking to each other as we scramble to get ourselves set up, to figure this out. Surely, it’s bingo and what could have changed? What do we need to know that we don’t already know?

We were handed about 10 sheets of bingo cards printed on newsprint and bordered in different colors, asked if we wanted a machine for $57, told to keep our voices down, and handed a laminated card that illustrated the various games that were going to be played; the snack stand was pointed at, $17 was collected. I’m not sure if I got the order of those things correct. It was right around then that something started happening in my brain—this weird kind of reverse déjà vu where I thought what was happening had never happened before.