Gutter balls

Last Friday, with no Bible study to attend, my friends and I decided to go drunken bowling. \nFor all you losers (or anti-winners, if you prefer) who haven't partaken in this glorious sport, you should know that there are two main differences between drunken and sober bowling.\nFirst, scores don't matter. It's a Christian miracle if you can hit the pins. In essence, bowling intoxicated is quite like living in Gary: You're damn lucky if you make it past 50.\nSecond, your fellow bowlers -- the 2 a.m. crazies -- won't stop talking to you. On one side of us, in fact, sat an extremely chatty group of obese women. Their words were eager and excited to come out, and rightfully so, since they were generally muffled by incoming hamburgers. \nOn the other side was a group of Tennesseans having a bachelor party. Captivated by our alluring fragrance of detergent and education, they began hovering, eyeing the females seductively. \nOne of the men eventually stumbled over. \n"Any of you ladies want to have a good time?" he asked, his question jumping over three bottom teeth. \nMy girlfriends shook their heads, surprisingly uninterested in such a tempting proposition. \n"What about you?" he said, turning towards me. "Do you know any other hot college girls?"\n"Sadly, no," I said. "All my other friends died in a grease fire. Why don't you just hook up with a bridesmaid? Aren't you a groomsman?"\n"Nope," he replied, releasing a repressed burp. "I'm the groom."\n"In that case," I said, "I've got the perfect person for you to call."\nI gave him my ex-boyfriend's number. \n"Her name is Bambi," I said. "And she's horny as hell."\nWhen I returned to the game, I began to reflect upon this man's disgraceful proposition. Here was a guy who, on the eve of his own wedding, was trying to shack up with random women -- mere vaginal acquaintances. In less than 24 hours, he would be taking an eternal vow of monogamous fidelity. \nAlthough I realize he's an extreme outlier -- a white-trash anomaly -- the man at the bowling alley exemplifies a general trend: the disillusionment with American matrimony. Like some bowls, many marriages now end in an unfortunate "split."\nNo one takes it seriously. For our generation, victims of the "baby-boomers' divorces," marriage is now openly mocked, considered as laughable as Clay Aiken's Christmas CD. \nThis trend is typified by Britney and K-Fed's recent split. When they publicly announced their divorce, the headlines were big, but reaction was small. Why? Because it was a completely farcical marriage, an obvious ploy for televised attention. It was all make-believe, just like the faux marriages on Facebook where two frat guys jokingly wed one another. \nHa freakin' ha. \nIt's hard to laugh wholeheartedly when millions of Americans are still left out of this constitutional gag. While committed gay couples struggle to obtain legalized partnership, straight people frolic in the antics of televised matrimony. \nMarriage is currently treated like a trivialized game, like drunken bowling itself -- which probably explains why so many of them end up in the gutter.