B-3, O-69, and Drag Bingo Babes
How I Lost my Heart in North Star Ballroom
By Jay Walker
The venue was North Star Ballroom, filled to the brim with bingo brawlers and sprinkled with drag queens, the latest frontline in the ongoing “War on Drag.” As of recent, there have been several points won in favor of the valiant drag hunks, drag broads, and otherwise drag cuties fightin’ the good fight for us all. In a recent decision by a federal judge, David Hittner, a Texas law was struck down attempting to ban certain prosthetics used by many drag artists from being worn in proximity to children, the very same children across the country who often are denied school lunch by the same kind of ‘rethuglican’ reptiles that originally devised the Texas law. In recent times, drag artists have become just the latest and lamest moral panic to be whipped out by the morally bankrupt, whose only honed talent is weaponizing the ignorance of man. Will tonight be another victory for the good guys? That is yet to be seen.
With some time to kill before the bingo contest commenced, I figured it couldn’t hurt to sneak a taste of the bingo marker. Briefly marinating my tongue in the green ink allowed me to come to a neck-jolting discovery—it tasted like chicken… if chicken was bitter and horrible. I imagine it’s what Ronald Reagan’s heart would have tasted like if he had one.
A sight that would have brought shame to Renaissance sculptures appeared on stage. She was an expert in her given field, a doctor of art. It was the drag icon dubbed “Jujubee,” a shimmering cascade of rhinestones and tassels, all fastened by a gaudy belt.
Aside from the pinnacle of beauty and intelligence that stood atop the stage, there were some other drag delights participating in the bingo bash as competitors. Hairdos of a thousand hues adorned their heads, arranged in an assortment of waves and curls. The immaculate beauty led me to ask, “Were we all worthy to be in their midst?” Still, I am urged to contend the contrary.
Following a brief moment of prancing around the bingo hall to strut her stuff, Jujubee soon enough was seen mincing back up the stairs. Woah mama! It took great discipline not to give in... to lose it and become a primordial predecessor to modern man. It took everything I had not to pound the table frantically and whistle from across the room. Hubba hubba!
Jujubee, in an attempt to undoubtedly appeal to the hall packed with UMN students, mentioned that back in something called “Massachusetts,” gophers were instead referred to as “woodchucks.” It was at this point, my tainted mind managed to summon a thought, a relatively rare occurrence: “What’s a ‘massive two shits’?” My question was never properly answered.
The first number of rounds went off without a hitch and without catastrophe. A diagonal line was the required way to win the initial round. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, as well as the designated pattern needed to win the second round. A hand fan is the prize during this second inning, which Jujubee gracefully clarified as a “homosexual fan.”
A bizarre series of unplanned call-and-response rituals played out throughout the evening. For instance, in the event that B-3 was declared, a sea of high-pitched responses sounded: “Bee threee!” Other noteworthy cadences included “B-4… and after,” in tandem with “B-12. Like the vitamin! Take your vitamins!” But no number elicited such outcry as O-69, which always conjured an artillery of banshee cries.
Somewhere in those early bingo bouts, a difficult-to-decipher clamoring could be heard from the crowd, to which Jujubee inquired, “Did somebody say bingo?”
A pause ensued, which was, again, followed by her saying, with a discernible air of sarcasm this time, “Oh, so you're a liar?” Laughter assaulted the air.
“I think the powers of the universe are starting to listen to me,” offered a pitiably deluded bingo combatant, surely afflicted by shell shock.
The fourth round was what separated the faint of heart from the hardened criminals-in-the-making. This arrangement of dots had to resemble a heart for this stretch. Awww, how quaint? The treasure, this time around, was body paint. So scandalous! Like a jackhammer carving a path through sediment, my leg bounced with crippling anxiety. If real cash was on the line, then perhaps my gambler instincts would have kicked in by now, and made me quit while I still had a heart beating in my chest.
Slowly, the heart shape came into being across my 5 x 5 square grid. But I couldn’t have been alone. Many others had to have been treading towards victory as well.
“Do you even want the body paint as badly as I do?,” viciously barked a battle-hardened bingo-goer. The continued squabbling and shrieks, matched by deafening episodes of impish cackling, rocked me to my core. Was I playing bingo or dodging cannon fire at Gettysburg? Accusations of being jinxed and marker theft were charged in all corners of the room. We entered the room as people, but had become bickering vultures, out for each others’ heads and nothing more. Once more B-3 was called up, and so again the synchronized chant occurred.
I only had one more blasted dot to mark, and it was that awe-inspiring O-69. At that moment, I was walking the tightrope, perched on the precipice between wonder and perdition. At the very least, I was performing a balancing act between having body paint and not having the desired goop in question. The tension in the bingo battleground was so taut that it could have been cut with a butter knife. Fortune and glory had been within reach—that is, until hopes and dreams across the room died when that fateful exclamation sounded out, “Bingo!”
We all sat there and prayed as the verification process was underway. “Please say it is not so!” I thought. Then, a miracle struck. The trickster had missed one. It was a false alarm and a second lease on life. More and more bingo markers pounded down like a judge gavel sending someone off to a lifetime of jailbird blues. What could only be a twisted god’s sadistic sense of humor occurred shortly after. Someone else cried out the fateful b-i-n-g-o once more, ejecting my soul from my body in the process.
The next two rounds were, to me, a dizzying mess, with me hazily gluing back together the pieces of my pride, shattered from the last stint. Terms five and six were hard-fought for the chance to win a mirror with a built-in light and a Trixie Mattel drag-themed coloring book, respectively. Arf arf!
Another witty ‘Jujubeeism’ could be heard: “B-9, and not malignant!”
From what I could tell, these later two bingo bouts concluded rather swiftly, but my memory could be deceiving me. As I was slipping out of my catatonic episode, I was not prepared for what occurred next.
Onto the seventh and final round, as well as the seventh ring of hell. If the previous 6 slogs proved themselves to be a testament of will, this last round was a gladiatorial spectacle, and we were all unknowingly the pugilists in this colosseum. It was as if millennia of social progress had been for naught; everyone was out for themselves. The last hurdle, the blasted pattern, was scornfully dubbed “Gopher All,” consisting of the entire sheet. What in the blue blazes was this? Was there ever a greater menace than this? We had to cover the entire sheet to be crowned with laurels of fame and treasure? Countless tables in the arena were nearly destroyed by rapidly dropping jaws; the result of which was the reveal of those coveted treasures: two tickets to a Joji concert.
Fading in and out of delirium, I trudged on. Those around me inched closer and closer to a filled sheet, with so many dots on theirs, and so few plastered on mine. I could’ve sworn those god-damned dots were mocking me. They may as well have been bullet wounds. The numbers droned on with increasing haste, and no light at the end of the tunnel in sight. Another B-3 and the shrill chorus of repeating voices once again mimicked the mascara marvel at the podium. Had I missed any numbers out of distracted lunacy? The last I remembered was the call of a number and my hand shakily aiming for the sheet with the thick bingo stylus, only to drop it. I zoned out.
My glazed-over eyes were brought back to focus, only to realize that the gauntlet had concluded, and a champion had been crowned. Unfortunately, I resembled more of a toad than I did my usual, dimwitted self; I tried to grasp that I would be returning to my humble shack without any spoils of war. Even though the winner takes all and the loser takes… well, the loser loses, sometimes it’s not about something as ephemeral as glory. Sometimes to be huddled together with your fellow freak and gaze in wonder at an artist, and a gorgeously talented one at that, is reward enough.
Like I stated before, “Hubba hubba!”
Much to the dismay of homophobic buzzkills, no children burst into flames upon being within 2 meters of someone wearing garish makeup or being covered in sequins. On a positive note, no drag-slandering or scapegoating morons decided to step into the fray that night. Thankfully too, as I wouldn’t want a decent excuse to spend the night in a jail cell. It seems everyone had reclaimed their humanity little by little. A silver lining made up for any leftover sour feelings: a tour de force and a meet and greet with Jujubee. Clearly, it’s best to shake off spite. After all, life’s a drag, so live it up!