The Roto Rooter Christmas Party at East Providence Lanes, Newport Avenue, East Providence, RI

Sorry for the long, and slightly odd, post title.  I just want to make sure that anyone searching for this bowling alley online finds this post.

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Last night, Roto Rooter, Steve's employer, treated the employees and their families to a night of bowling at East Providence Lanes.  They catered a dinner for us, and we had 14 lanes to use for the night. 

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Our kids have been on a duckpin bowling league for the last 2 months, so we were excited to go.  Plus, we don't get to go out and do fun things like this as a whole family very often, so we were really looking forward to the party.  We had two of our friends with us--Miranda & JayJay.

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We arrived, ate dinner, and then strapped on our bowling shoes.  It's a candlepin bowling alley, so a little different than we're used to.  Steve's friend, Jim, joined us, and we played boys vs. girls. 

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About 4 frames into the game, a large projector screen was lowered right at the end of the lanes that we were using.  It didn't block the view of the pins, but it was huge.  There were 4 or 5 of these screens, spaced down the length of the bowling alley.

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Then, to my horror, they started playing rap videos.  Racy, explicit, completely inappropriate rap videos.  I was floored.  Just flabberghasted.

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Steve went over to an employee to complain, and he told Steve that there wasn't anything that he could do about it, that the screens were controlled by a computer at the front desk.  What he didn't say was that Steve could go to the front desk and complain. 

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A few songs later, I went over to the same employee, who gave me the same story, plus an attitude.  I stopped him and said, "You're saying that I can go say something to the front desk, but that you have no control over this, right?".  He said "YES", so I gave him a pat on the shoulder, and said, "Calm down, you should have just said that!", and off to the front desk I went.

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The bowling alley was mobbed.  So busy.  So I understand that our business meant little to nothing to them.  I got to the desk, and the man acted like I had 3 heads to complain about the videos.  He said he would "see what he could do", but was very dismissive.

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And...shockingly, nothing happened.  The videos stayed on, first a Bob Seger "Old Time Rock & Roll", innocent enough, but the video is of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear from Risky Business (right, that was that movie?), and then a High School Musical video, again harmless enough, but how were we to know what was going to come on next?

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So, we left as soon as our game was played (Steve's friend, Jim, won, but he owns his own shoes & ball--I came in 2nd ).  I couldn't in good conscience keep my friends' kids there, even if I could have found a way to rationalize keeping my kids there, which I couldn't.

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I'm still so disappointed & upset.  I want to write a letter to the bowling alley, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort.   I'm pretty sure it will just end up in the trash, with whoever reads it shaking their head at this strange wacko who doesn't allow her kids to watch these videos.

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I did take some fun pictures, though--we would have stayed much longer had the videos not been playing:

Steve, trying to remember how to bowl.

Trying again...

JayJay tries his best!

Miranda, trying to stay on her feet (you can see the giant screen at the end of the lane)

Maddie, showing off her moves!