Lanes infested with tiny mimes

Stone’s Lanes Tavern League play was suspended for about forty-five minutes Monday evening when a colony of two dozen tiny whiteface mimes was discovered living inside the bowlng alley’s pinsetting equipment.

Before and after the mime delay, the Illuminati Bowling Team carved out a hard-fought 3-4 decision against a wildly unpredictable Stoned team. The Illuminati narrowly lost the first two games but won big in the third on the strength of a Jim Huneke 192, which was enough to give the I-Team a one-point margin in total pins.


A screen capture from the Lane 25 scoring camera
reveals one of the Stone's Lanes mini-mimes posing
as the headpin.

The mimes, each about eighteen inches tall and able to do a very convincing impression of a bowling pin, were discovered when one of them got his foot stuck in the thumbhole of a bowling ball and was carried up the ball return. Clearly injured, the mime nevertheless extricated himself from the ball, performed a brief glass box illusion for the startled bowlers, and escaped into the women's restroom, where he was later found hiding in a tampon dispenser.

Once the infestation was discovered, at least twenty other mimes were flushed from the pinsetting racks by Gutterballs, the disgraced bowling alley dog (see “League commissioner: Dog ate it,” October 6), now a hero.

Where the mimes came from, why they settled in the noisy and dangerous machinery, and how they have survived there for, apparently, several months are all mysteries that Stone’s vice president of operations Neil Bush says an internal investigation will attempt to solve. A retired Norwood police officer has been retained to lead the probe but so far has been stonewalled. “The mimes aren’t talking,” Bush said.

Investigators are pursuing a theory that the mimes might have been working for one or more of the Tavern League teams, attempting to affect the outcome of games by deflecting opponents’ balls away from the pocket, knocking down extra pins for friendly bowlers, and miming pins to confuse the scoring cameras.

Amitai Etzioni, a retired Xavier University anthropologist who hopes to study the Stone’s mime colony, was dubious. “Elementary physics argues against that scenario,” he said. “Those mimes weigh about a pound and a half apiece. For one of them to try to change the trajectory of a sixteen-pound bowling ball… well, if you think of it on a normal scale like you and me, it would be like standing in front of a ball the size and mass of a Volkswagen that’s coming at you at 220 miles per hour. If they are trying to control the ball these are very brave little mimes. Not very bright, but brave."

The Illuminati, who are leading the league's Split Division, improved their record to 19-16.

The lines
Kennedy--116, 105, 115: 336; avg 107 (+1)
Hunt--159, 113, 150: 422; avg 143 (unch)
Huneke--156, 135, 192: 483; avg 161 (new)
Corathers--131, 157, 173: 461; avg 146 (+1)