The Bowling Incident… Bunny Unfiltered

The islands of the Pacific Northwest are some of the prettiest places on the planet, and as most of
you know, our own cozy little Hop Island is one of them. Now Hop is known for all kinds of fine things—prolific crabbing, good fishing, and hiking trails so pretty they’ll make you stop and forget where you were headed. But if we’re being honest, what Hop is really known for is its lively population of senior citizens who make up most of the island.

And honey, they are not sitting around in rocking chairs.

No ma’am.

This spirited bunch can usually be found pedaling bicycles, watching birds like it’s an Olympic
event, sipping coffee half the day, eating out the other half, and—more often than not—holding
court down at the local bowling alley, Sling-It. Now Sling-It stays busy with senior men’s leagues, senior ladies’ leagues, senior mixed leagues, and senior everything else.

And right in the middle of all that action—bowling her heart out, hollering encouragement, and
stirring up just enough trouble to keep things interesting—is my dear friend Bunny.
And no, Bunny was not named after the island. Just saying.

At seventy-one years old, Bunny still has it goin’ on. She colors her blonde hair regular, works
hard to keep her curves where she wants ’em, and dresses in a way that suggests she and
modesty had a falling out sometime around 1987.

Let’s just say Bunny does not believe in wasting a good figure. That philosophy is precisely what got her into trouble last Tuesday.

She came sailing into Sling-It in a hot pink sweater, white capris, and a smile big enough to bless
the whole room. And somewhere between her bungalow and Lane Four… she had apparently forgotten her bra.

Now, I am not one to gossip. But I will tell you this: those double Ds were down there bowling a match all by themselves.

By the time Bunny bent over to line up her first shot, half the alley was snorting into their score
sheets and the other half was trying real hard to act mature and failing miserably.
Bunny, of course, carried on like she was Miss America at a pancake breakfast. The women on her bowling team love her anyway. Lord knows why. Maybe because for all her foolishness, Bunny really does mean well.

“I just want to put a smile on the face of everybody I meet,” she’s forever saying, usually while
batting her mascara-heavy lashes at some unsuspecting gentleman.

And somehow, she usually succeeds.

That Bunny. She is a walking bad decision.

In fact, the women on her team adore her so much they once humored her enough to let her name
the team KY Jellies, which ought to tell you just about everything you need to know about
Bunny right there.

But while most folks at Sling-It found Bunny entertaining, there were two women in particular
who looked at her the way decent church ladies look at a casino buffet.

Vivian and Grace.

Vivian was the kind of woman who wore pressed slacks, low heels, and enough hairspray to
survive a hurricane. She smiled constantly, but never with her eyes. Hop Island called her an
accomplished bowler. The rest of us called her what she was: dangerous with a casserole and a rumor.
Grace, her best friend and faithful sidekick, had a neck so stiff from disapproval she looked
permanently offended by oxygen. Together, they had perfected the art of smiling at a woman while mentally setting her on fire. Vivian took one look at Bunny bouncing around Lane Four and leaned toward Grace. “Well,” she murmured, lips barely moving, “some women age gracefully.” Grace gave the smallest little sniff. “And some age… publicly.”

Now that was mean.

Bunny heard enough to know it was about her, and though she kept smiling, something in her
face flickered. That’s the thing about Bunny. She acts like nothing gets to her. But it does.
More than she lets on.

To be fair, Vivian and Grace may have had one or two reasons for disliking Bunny.
There was that unfortunate misunderstanding involving a married man.
And by misunderstanding, I mean Bunny didn’t know he was married until after the shrimp
scampi. But in her defense, he had looked just like her fourth and favorite husband, and that sort of
emotional whiplash can make a woman overlook a wedding ring.

Still, by the end of league night, the whispers had wormed their way under Bunny’s skin.
“Like they’ve never left home a little underdressed,” she muttered later, strutting out of Sling-It
with tears burning in her bright blue eyes.

But if there’s one thing Bunny has always known how to do, it’s turn humiliation into fuel.
That night, she bowled the best game of her life.

223.

And not one person in that alley—not Vivian, not Grace, not a single snickering soul—could
take that away from her. Which was good timing. Because the annual Sling-It Tournament starts in two weeks and Bunny has decided she is going to take the KY Jellies all the way to victory and wipe those smug little smiles clean off the mean girls’ faces.

All it’s going to take is practice, focus… and her lucky pink panties.

Bunny opens the front door of her bungalow, kicks off her heels, and dumps her purse on a chair.
She sinks into her overstuffed couch, still hot with humiliation and triumph, and starts building a
plan.

First thing she does is pull up Amazon on her phone. If those lucky pink panties helped her bowl a 223, then obviously the whole team needed a pair. She squints at the screen, adds six pairs to her cart, and smiles.
There. Problem solved.

Unfortunately for Bunny…
she had just ordered the wrong kind.
And by Saturday night, all of Hop Island would know it.

And if there’s one thing I can promise you…
Bunny is just getting started. 💋

Bunny Unfiltered
New Trouble Every Friday