For my off-campus event, Brady, Cait and I went to play Bingo at Creekside Charity Bingo in Round Rock. Our original plan was to go play in Sun City, hoping for a specifically older demographic. However, I think this experience proved to be just as much of a personal stretch, if not more. While playing Bingo in Sun City would have placed me among many elderly people—something relatively out of my comfort zone—they would have been very similar to me in most other ways (white, upper/middle class, etc.). Creekside definitely provided a more foreign environment.

Upon entering, I felt lost, embarrassed, and honestly a little nervous. It was like walking into the cafeteria with no friends and looking for a place to sit (except that Brady and Cait were there to alleviate some of the discomfort). I immediately felt judged. More than likely, I’m just being arrogant in thinking that anyone would care enough or bother to judge me. However, I got the familiar sensation that these people were pigeon holing me as a spoiled, ignorant, white girl. While I’ve gotten somewhat used to that feeling—upper/middle-class was definitely the minority in my high school, as was being white—it was still pretty unsettling.

Despite this, when we sat down and started fumbling through the sheets of Bingo cards and colored “dabbers,” the woman sitting next to us immediately began explaining what to do. She almost completely stopped paying attention to her card—something that was NOT done in this hall—and showed us where to mark and told us the wild numbers and even came over and helped us dab so we could catch up! We finally got the hang of it, but the woman continued to tell us little helpful bits throughout the night.

This interaction was more than I could have hoped for from this experience. I am so glad that I chose to do something like this instead of attending a meeting or other event that wouldn’t have involved contact with other people. I think this experience was so appropriate to our topic, Understanding Human Behavior. It was very entertaining to watch people throughout the night, so many different types of people were there. I kept wondering what it was that brought each person there. Several older women were there with what looked like groups of friends who attended regularly. There was a group that looked like an elderly woman and her two grown-up kids. From the middle-aged man who had a pizza and a whole stack of cards for the night to the pair of chatty older ladies with their totes specifically made for Bingo—I kid you not, they had pockets along the outside for all of their dabbers—they were all in the same room just trying to relax or get away or get a little competition. The woman who helped us was cracking me up with her husband, who clearly did not have the interest in Bingo that she did; he kept pushing his card over to her and she would tell him no that he needed to play it. Another lady at our table just laughed at us every time we started arguing, but not in what I felt was a cruel or judgmental way. It was more like the way someone would laugh at little kids playing…I think we amused her.

Everyone was so welcoming, which was not the impression I got upon entering. I ended up having a really good time. When we left, we gave our dabbers to the woman who helped us the whole night. I wouldn’t even mind going again, I think we should make it a Paideia activity, the place was overflowing with wonderful human behavior to be analyzed.