Winter break is over, which means coming back to UND with stories to tell your friends about all the exciting and warm places you visited. Early into winter break, I spent a weekend in Thief River Falls with some family and ended up going to Bingo at the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Up until then. the only times I had ever played Bingo was during German class in high school and with my family at Christmas parties, so I was not very familiar with playing for money or playing with cards that you had to buy.  

When we arrived at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, I was the one in the group without a dabber, which is the ink pen-like marker used to check off Bingo squares in a real game. Up until that time when I had played, we just used whatever writing utensil was available to us and marked them with our choice of a circle or an X, but this time we used the real tools of the trade. Luckily, the callers had a basket of them available for the players to grab if they did not have one of their own.  

The gameplay was faster paced than I was used to, which had me off guard for a game or two. Once I was used to the speed, I could hold a conversation and mark all the numbers as they were called without any issue. I was able to react even faster once I noticed that all the numbers were shown on the tv screens mounted randomly around the seating before they were called over the PA system. This allowed me to hold a conversation a little bit easier because I could still mark my card without paying much attention to the voice. I just had to remember that I could not call Bingo until after the number was called over the speaker system to make it fair to everyone in the room, not to mention that it was a part of the rules.  

Fifteen cards were played during the entire game with prizes ranging from around $50 to over $100, which may not seem like a large sum but when each card cost only a dollar, it was an excellent way to spend an evening while getting the opportunity to win some money. In the end, I did not win any money, but I was able to spend time with my family and try something new. 

Dylan Enerson is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected]