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This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and every Thursday we release these special episodes that we're calling Classic Risk Singles. Each of these episodes features just one story from our earlier years. If you're new to Risk, you should know that the podcast can be very uncensored.
This week, a story by Dustin Diodato that first appeared on the podcast in April of 2011, and it's called Bone Crusher. When I was a kid, I took bowling very seriously. Incredibly seriously. So my parents got divorced when I was very little and my mom needed something to do with me on Tuesday so she wouldn't be a bowling week.
I was immediately super psyched about it and my parents were very supportive. They got me all the bowling accoutrements. I was set. They took me to get my own bowling ball and I knew exactly the one I wanted.
It was clear with a skull inside because it turns out that they don't sell out at every bowling alley. So I got the blue one with sparks. I said, okay, well I can customize it though, because you can be named on the bowling ball. So when the guy asked me what name I wanted, I said Bone Crusher.
And my mom was like, yeah, nobody really knows she was Bone Crusher, seeing as I was 7 plus you paid by the letter. So we compromised him. With Justin, I had the bowling glove. I didn't know what he did then and I don't know what he does now, but I had it, so it made it better.
And I had the bowling shoes for way too long because I Got them in the end of second grade and I had them in fourth grade. If you know anything about little kids in their feet, they grow a lot and it hurt. But there's some sense of pride that comes from that moment when the guy behind the counter says, hey, what type of shoes do you want? And you can just turn and say, I got it.
Come on then. So I handled that. And at the end of ten grand, I discovered you could have a bowling birthday party. I was like, yes.
Combines three things. I love birthday parties for me, presents and crushing my friends at some sort of activity. And I could because I was good at bowling and they were awful. I bowled at 115, which for adults is bad, but for seven year olds, pretty damn good.
Second grade bowling party, third grade bowling parties. Fourth grade was gonna be the best one yet because in fourth grade they invented rock and roll bowling. They didn't invent it prior, but I discovered it for a grade. And basically what it was was bowling, but with rock music.
So it was gonna be good. And at bowling party is basically three games of bowling, awful pizza and really good french fries. And then presents. So today was the day for my fourth grade bowling parties.
It's like I was about 10 and at the time my mother and I lived with my grandparents and we were all gonna go to the party together. They started at 3 o', clock, but my mother and her boyfriend said, hey, you know what? Why don't we leave a little bit early and get to the party? And I was like, great.
I'm all on board with that because that means we're bowling by the time everybody else gets there, I'm gonna groove and I win by more. So we get in the car and I immediately realize we are not heading towards the bowling alley. And I only knew where, like three places on the point where it was basically like my school, my dad's house, and the bowling alley. And we were not going to any of them.
So I start to get a little, like, nervous. Eventually my mom pulls over and gets out of the car and leaves me with her boyfriend John. And John was kind of a nice guy, but moody. And he's one of those people that calls everybody champ or bud.
So like, even if he's being nice, he's kind of being a douche. So there we were in the car and anytime we'd got on these rides and nowhere, I always go, hey, what are we doing? Where are we going? And her response was always, well, I'm putting down money for a gift for John.
And eventually I'll pay off enough and then I'll give him that gift. But today John was in the car so it couldn't be for him. And it was my birthday. Ergo, bowling ball was going size for me.
Pretty excited about it until I look at my watch which I just bought for $12 my own money at the Greater Royal Chef account fair. And it was a transformer kid just came off a little robot in arms. And I realized that my watched head, that it was a quarter of a strip, meaning the party was gonna start in 15 minutes. And I started freaking out.
So I started bugging John and I was like John, hey, you know what's going on? He's like chat doorbell, we'll be there. No time. I wait a couple more minutes, she's not coming back.
I started bugging him, he's like, buddy, it'll be okay. All of a sudden now it's 10 minutes ago, he's still not back. I'm freaking out, hang on now I hook up my lunch and it's three o', clock, the party has started and I no longer have any patience. So fellow John, what is the deal?
What is going on? Why are we not at my party? And he whiffs around and he says, look, you wanna know what's going on? Your mom's buying drugs, alright?
When she goes on to do a ride, she buys drugs. She does drugs and I do drugs. We do drugs. You happy now?
Now you know. And I was stunned, as you expect. I wasn't mad or sad as much as I was confused because I knew about drugs, was that bad people did them and my mom did them, so my mom couldn't be bad because good is a defining characteristic of mom. So I knew everything was different, but I couldn't make it make sense.
So eventually she got back in the car. At that point it was about 3:15 and I didn't say a word. I just sat there as we drove back until at one point I just said, hey, what am I supposed to tell everybody? She said, I don't know, tell whatever.
And I was like, no, what am I supposed to tell everybody? We're waiting till my birthday party, I'm your birthday boy, they're notice. She said, I don't care. And that's when I got mad because she had done this, this was her fault and she was taking no responsibility.
When we got there, we already missed the first two games of bowling. And everybody ran to me, basically got out of traffic, which was total crap to do with 10 Mental Lane coming From the exact same direction as Everybody else. The 10 year old was stupid and they don't know. So it totally worked.
I bowled with a game, bowling. And don't worry, I won bowling 85, which is bowl of average, but enough to beat those kids. And we did the pizza thing, we did the french fries thing. And I was like, okay, maybe we can salvage this and maybe we'll break even.
I'll still get the bone ball. Let's go inside. It'll work itself out. So I open up all the gifts and I get the one for my mom.
And it's a boombox. I'd never really asked for one. I never really wanted one per se. But I guess it was kind of a cool gift, you know, music with whatever.
And eventually I kinda really like it because I had the freedom of playing whatever music I wanted. Three months later, I came home going out with my grandparents and my mom had stolen all the TVs from the house, all my grandmother's jewelry, all the money I had for an allowance and the boombox, and then disappeared for nine months. When she came back, she never apologized or said anything or never went to rehab. The only time that I saw her be apologetic in any way or see any sense of anything was last year when I went to her and I told her that I'd been diagnosed with something called retinitis pigmentosa, which is a genetic disease that will eventually leave me blind.
And I can see it occur to her that nine months of drinking and smoking and doing heroin while she was pregnant may have actually had a consequence on somebody other than her. My doctor told me that in actuality there was no connection and probably didn't do anything. But I've never told her that and I'm not going to. And on a side note, a little while back I pulled a 185.
So I think with a little bit of practice, I made the way back and forth. That's all for this week's classic Risk singles episode. Now, don't miss out on our regular full length episodes. There's a brand new one every Tuesday, and everything you might want to know about us is at risk-show.com.