The Year I Acquired 144 Bowling Balls

Back in the fall of 2005 Brad & I found ourselves at an auction for a bowling alley that was closing down. 

The lot for the house balls came up and the opening bid was announced as $200.00. No one made a move. The auctioneer then started riffing on lower and lower opening bid amounts until finally he announced, "$5.00, do I have any interest in them at $5.00?"

I shot up my bidder number without thinking and the auctioneer yelled "We have five, do I hear ten? $5.00 is on the table, do I hear ten? Five dollars going once...going twice...sold to bidder (whatever my bidder number was, I've long since forgotten).

Brad stared at me like I had suddenly sprouted horns. Then he asked the obvious question: "What the hell are you going to do with all of those bowling balls?" The only answer I could come up with was, "I have no idea." 

144 bowling balls for $5.00, plus tax. Took two trips to get them all home.

As the smaller of the two dogs I had at the time (Cami, the Brittany Spaniel) was in the habit of digging at various spots along the backyard fence, I decided to use the bowling balls to line it - so I dug a shallow trench the width of the entire north run of the fence (and a bit along the east run of the fence, too) and put the bowling balls in it.

Worked like a charm.