BINGO!

When I was 13, I got my first job working at a bingo hall! I worked every Thursday for two hours, so you can imagine the kind of dough I was rolling in.

The bingo hall was one big square room with rows of long tables, at the front was a platform where the announcer and my boss sat, almost like prison guards monitoring the hall.

It was very colorless. White walls, white tiled floor, beige tables, and fluorescent lighting (much like a classroom) that no one looked good in.

The time I worked there was way back when you were actually allowed to smoke inside. The minute you walked in you were greeted with a cloud of smoke that followed you even after you left.

I would get there at 6:30, Bingo started at 7. Every week, minutes after I arrived the crowd would start to pile in. They all knew each other, it was the same faces every week, and the majority was over the age of 50. They would take their seats carrying their hand sewn bags, made specifically for their bingo dobbers, get settled in, and then it was my time to shine.

My job was to walk around with a little pouch on, carrying 3 different sets of cards, and a float of money, with about 3 other people. We would wander up and down the aisles of the hall and sell tickets to the bingo players. This must have been where I got my exceptional math skills because we didn’t carry calculators. I had to do all the adding and subtracting in my head.

The first hour of my shift was always very chaotic (for a bingo hall). Everyone needed cards, and there were only so many of us running around the large hall. We made it easier on ourselves by dividing it up into sections.

My pouch always had 3 sets of cards – books for two dollars, “bonus” cards for 1 dollar, and the “special” cards for 1 dollar. No one was really there to socialize with me, and I didn’t seem to have much in common with the elderly, so my conversations were typically the same each time.

“I’ll have five books, two bonus’s and one special.”

“That’s 13 dollars please” that’s fast math.

“What?!”

“13 dollars please.”

“I can’t hear you, you’re going to have to speak up.”

This was always all between coughing, hacking, and cigarette drags. Sometimes I would get lucky and the person beside them would try to help me by telling my customer what I had just said, who usually also didn’t hear me correctly.  There was no loud music, just the calling of bingo numbers being listed off in the background.

The last hour was usually a little calmer. Everyone already had their books, so only so often would there be someone who needed a new bonus, or special card. But for the most part, it was more slack. At 8:30 the four of us who were working the floor would make our way to the front, where our boss was. We would sell back our cards, and float, ensuring we had the right amount of money. Sometimes, I would be over a dollar or two, which we would get to keep, and would be the highlight of my night/week.

Each shift ended the same; I would take off my apron, put on my jacket, walk to the front, where there was a small cafeteria, get a free pop, and congratulate myself on a job well done.