BINGO PARLORS – INNOCENT PASTIME?

(Montrose) Every night hundreds of people play bingo here in this Western Colorado hub. It’s fun and it gives many of them a chance to socialize without spending a fortune on other forms of entertainment. Of late, zealots in the community (fresh from knightly jousts with evil gargoyles) have decided that bingo is a sin, due to associations with numerology.

“We knew it was gambling, in a sense,” said Margot Rotweiller, executive director of the Central Rockies Recreational Bingo Coalition, “but we didn’t really think we were committing immoral acts here at the hall. Sure, cigarette smoking used to be permitted and coffee is served, but the only drinking done is off the premises.”

Many neighbors insist that not only the bingo callers but the board itself are in league with the devil.

“Haven’t you heard about numerology and the application of negative powers?” asked a frightened looking, self-admitted former drug addict turned righteous last night or the night before. “Don’t you even watch the television evangelists? They need your money more than this bawdy bingo parlor.”

At present no one has come forth to be saved or to respond to the accusations of this vocal minority. It is not know whether people take their pleas seriously or if they are simply asleep.

“We’re functioning completely within the law,” said Rotweiller, who added that over 200,000 people have passed through the doors of the her bingo emporium since it opened in 1994. “In Salem they burned witches, in Nazi Germany they burned books, today they bomb abortion clinics. I suppose it was naive of us bingo fans to think we’d be exempt from the terrible swift sword.”

– Kashmir Horseshoe