Banana Rats and Bingo

The other morning I finally spotted a banana rat or hutia (hoo-TEE-uh) while I was walking Fergus. Hutia is the more politically correct term, while some folks just like the sound of “banana rat” which was definitely more alliterative in my title.

Hutias are moderately large rodents that inhabit the Caribbean islands. They can range in size from 8 inches to 2 feet long, and can weigh up to 15 pounds. They are mostly seen at night, and instead of burrowing in the ground, they use trees for their nests. Hutias, along with iguanas, are hunted for food in Cuba. Banana rats are given their name because their feces look like small versions of the fruit.

Anyway, I was excited to see one (the banana rat, that is) and he held nice and still for me while I took a few photos.

The other highlight of the same day was my first ever public bingo game. (No, I am not a closet bingo player -- the last time I played it was in elementary school.)

My friend, Hope, and I were lured to bingo night at the Windjammer by the $5,000 grand prize. Somebody has to win this and why couldn’t it be one of us? We both had this vision of going into a room with lots of old people casually marking their cards as numbers were called out.

But, no, we were likely the oldest players there (and just about the only Americans), and let me tell you, bingo has changed in the last....ahem....50 years. (I can’t believe I wrote that.) First, we had to fill out a form, declaring we would adhere to all the bingo rules and mark how many cards we wanted to purchase. What made the process more challenging was that a very nice young Jamaican man was trying to explain to us what we needed to do. We couldn’t understand anything he said -- we just nodded our heads politely and tried to look as if we understood.

The one thing I got from him was: “look at da monitor” and I had no idea what he was talking about. Anyway, we took our bingo sheets, our bingo markers, and found a table with some other folks who could speak English. Unfortunately, it was also their first night to play, so we wouldn’t get much help from them.

When it was time for us to start playing, we finally figured out what “look at da monitor” meant -- there was TV screens scattered around the gymnasium-sized room. The person selecting a ball with a number on it would first hold the ball in front of the camera connected to the monitors. So, you would see the number on the monitor BEFORE it was called out. (Maybe all of you already know all of this because you are seasoned bingo players. Sadly, I had to learn the hard way.) As soon as you saw the number, you were supposed to check your bingo sheets. Then, a few seconds later he could call out the number, but he was already holding the next number up to the camera. So, you would see one number, and hear another. This was most confusing to me.

Besides this, as I next learned, playing bingo isn’t a nice, relaxing game that involves getting five numbers in a row. No, it is much more complicated than that. As we started playing our first game, in our about five minutes I had actually had a line in which five in a row were nicely colored. I whispered to Hope, “I have a bingo -- what should I do?” She looked at me as if I were an idiot, and said, “Yell bingo, of course.”

So....I did. Yell. “Bingo!” And, the whole room got very quiet and everyone looked at me with appalled expressions and started hissing quite loudly something like: “NO NO NO....blackout.....NOOOOOO....”

This was not the result I expected and some bingo employees came running to our table. A very kind Filipino gentleman explained that it was a “blackout” game meaning all the numbers on a card had to blacked out before one could expect to pronounce a bingo.

Bingo suddenly didn’t seem quite so entertaining. At least, it wasn’t to me -- it was to everyone else in the room, however. So, the game resumed and I very quietly continued to mark my card, and thank goodness, somebody else won. (I was terrified that I would legally win and have to say the dreaded “bingo” again.)

After the blackout game, eight different games followed with each one having a different pattern to achieve on the bingo card. Arrows, diamonds, little brown jugs (not kidding) -- you had to achieve a different pattern for each game before you could declare bingo.

Every so often one of the bingo employees would casually stroll by our table and examine my card to see how I was doing. They kept a really close eye on me the rest of the night.

I was determined to not win -- and I didn’t.

(Hope is smiling because she wasn't the one to yell bingo at the wrong time.)