I've done a lot of stupid things that have almost killed me... but this time would have been one of the most embarrassing... if that is possible.
I was in 10th grade and I worked at a bowling alley. It was Saturday morning and the first thing I always had to do was clean the wheels on the ball returns in the machines on each alley. The first thing I needed to do was turn off each machine from the back before I went inside them. The switch in the back was the master switch. Each machine could also be turned on and off from the front desk only as long as it was ON in the back. So... I turned off all of the machines from the back this one Saturday except for the last 2, lanes 23 and 24, because they were already OFF... but not turned off in the back!
I had cleaned 23 lanes. I was in the last machine cleaning the last wheel. I thought I was almost done, but unbeknownst to me, an elderly... I mean really elderly couple... had come in to go bowling and were at the front desk getting assigned a lane. Yes, you guessed it right. They got lane 24.
I was laying on my stomach cleaning that last wheel, when all of the sudden the machine sprang to life, with me inside. The first thing that happened was that the lights came flashing on. As they were turning on, the large conveyor belt I was laying on started carrying me to the very back of the machine. With ninja like reflexes, I pivoted and scrambled my way back onto the hardwood deck where the pins get placed without spilling a drop of the solvent from my can. I had a brief moment of relief, but then to my dismay, like stalactites on the ceiling of a cave, the machine started lowering the pins towards me. I simply laid there and cowered, as the pins quickly got closer and closer, expecting to get impaled or seriously crushed in several places. Just before they touched me, the pins stopped coming down at me
and thankfully started going back up.
I knew how the machine would go through a cycle to set the pins, but in that moment of panic, I was only able to think about 2 things. The first was to get out and the second was to not spill the solvent. Every movement and action the machine made surprised me.
Now that the pins were retreating back up, I thought I was home free. All's I had to do was simply crawl out. Again a very brief feeling of relief swept over me as I started crawling out of the machine to my escape. But my happy little feeling of freedom quickly evaporated as the sweep came crashing down right in front of me. I should of known it was going to happen, but I was brain dead and it scared me. To my horror, the sweep was sweeping me back into the very machine I had almost escaped from. I pivoted to me right side and held onto the sweep with my right hand and my precious can of solvent in my left hand. I was briefly swept clear off the hardwood deck back onto the now rapidly moving conveyor belt. Suddenly the sweep became my only ally in the machine and I just held on as tight as I could while the conveyor belt clawed away at the lower half of my body trying to pull me to the back.
When I said the machine came to life... it really felt liked it was alive because it kept surprising me.
The sweep had swept me back inside but then mercifully, it started pulling me back out and came to a stop. I was alive. I was safe. I had not spilled any solvent. I reached out and over the sweep and set down the can of solvent and started climbing over it to my freedom. I was so thankful it was over. I was so proud of how I had kept my cool and reacted so cleverly with such grace and skill.
I was half way over the sweep, when it suddenly started going up... DUH! Like I said... I guess I just went brain dead for a while. It was not over. In fact it had only begun.
The sweep lifted my body up at the waist. The part of the machine that held and set the pins, started pushing my legs down. And oh yes... the machine had a display panel that showed which pins were still standing after your first shot... it rigidly pressed harder and harder down against the center of my back as the sweep lifted me higher and higher.
I was getting crushed by the machine. It squeezing me tighter and tighter... and then it surprisingly came to a stop.
My entire body was gripped by the machine. My head and arms were free. I could thankfully touch the hardwood deck with my finger tips. My chest was compressed, so much by the machine, that I could barely breathe. I was not able to yell for help. I had to hold myself up, Bruce Lee fingertip pushup style, to be able to faintly pant.
I had no thought of the possibility of death at this time. I could pant. I was fine. Someone was going to see me soon. I knew I was going to get rescued soon... or so I thought... at first.
I could see the old couple standing at the front desk. They were just talking away with the lady behind the desk. Normally I would have not have been impatient, but this was not normal. I felt like they talked a long time. Finally, movement, they were walking towards my lane... number 24! Yes!
But then the old guy turned right to go to the bathroom. The old lady walked over to buy some coffee out of a coffee machine. My entire body was wracked in pain but I was only focused on my arms and fingers. I needed them to hold me up enough to continue my faint panting. They were getting tired. It was getting harder to hold myself up.
I tried 'yelling' for help but all that came out of me was a tiny high pitched short little yelp that I could barely hear. I tried flailing with my right arm briefly a few times when it looked like she was looking my way, but that didn't work.
Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I realized that I could die. The weird part was that that could happen real soon in a bowling alley machine. To my utter disappointment, she got up and walked away to look for a ball. I was helpless. I watch, in mute horror and in fading strength, as the 2 oldest bowlers in the world found their balls, took off and put on their shoes and chatted as they got ready to FINALLY bowl.
My arms were violently shaking. I had total lactic acid build up. I was running out of time. The old guy suddenly stepped up onto the approach and picked up his bowling ball.
YES! I was so happy. My strength rallied a little. I tried to 'yell' and I gave a few quick flails with one hand. Then an awful thought came to me. What if he doesn't see me and just walks up and throws that ball bowl down my way? I could just get totally pounded by these pins!
He stood there looking right at me. I gave one more quick flail. Then he turned and put down his bowling ball and walked back to his wife. I could see them talking and looking my way. I was done. I was shaking like a leaf. I couldn't hold out much longer, but I knew now that they saw me. Then he did the old man shuffle walk up to the front desk. Out came the lady from a room behind the front desk and I could see them talking. Then I saw panic on her face as she looked my way. I heard her yell for help and the mechanic came bolting out of that same room. He looked my way, paused momentarily to take in what was going on, and then sprinted across the lanes in a direct line right at me.
RESCUE AT LAST!
It was weird the thoughts of dread that went through my mind when I realized I might die. I kept trying to decide what the headlines would be in the paper about my unusual and untimely death.
TRAGIC TORSO TWIST or maybe FREAK BOWLING ALLEY MACHINE MAHEM.
Either way, I kept thinking about how embarrassing and awkward it was going to be for my parents, if I died this way. I could see my mom walking through some store and have some stranger approach her and ask if she was the poor mother of the young lad who had tragically and inexplicably been eaten by a bowling machine. I could imagine her awkwardly walk past people as they whispered to each other that she was my mother.
The mechanic came running up and quickly reach over to the right side of the display panel and turned a lever and swung up the display panel removing all that pressure off my back. I arched back and upwards and took in a long beautiful and grateful breath. I was alive! I was going to be fine!
He ran to the back and came out with a tool he used to crank the part of the machine down that was crushing my stomach and legs. I soon was freed and slowly was pulled out of the machine. My strength quickly returned and as I stood up I reached with my left hand to massage an ache in my left side. My left hand went deep into my side. I gasped and pulled up my shirt to see. A lot of my left side was gone. It looked liked I had been attached by a shark years ago. My body had molded like play dough around the gears and levers of the machine. It was so cool looking. I wish I had had a cell phone then to take a selfy.
My coworkers teased me for weeks about getting eaten by the machine. That stopped though the day a ball got stuck on lane 11.
Day
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