There are very few places I can think of in our society where it is socially acceptable to walk around in your socks. I think it's safe to say there is nowhere that you can do that while disco music plays, black lights shine, and people attempt to knock over carefully arranged objects. Why is this place the exception?
Call me old fashioned, call me a germaphobe, call me suspicious, it doesn't matter. I think we probably don't walk around in our socks everywhere else because of a couple things
- Shoes are more comfortable (for the most part) than going without
- We might not like the thought of our socks coming in such close contact with the variety of stuff on the ground everywhere
- Our mothers have scared us so much into thinking that we'll get beat and end up in a hospital if we walk around in just our socks
Personally I think it's probably option 3 there, but your reasoning could vary.
Disco music? Black lights? We're stuck in the 70's. That's got to be it. Apparently the decade was entertaining enough to make us all want to still be there. Personally I'll take 70's music over the catastrophe that was 80's music, but that's another entry on the blog.
The destructiveness that is encouraged in a bowling alley is wonderful. It almost reminds me of the part in Pinocchio where they go off to Pleasure Island, and they get to thrash pretty much everything. Let's not pay attention to the whole thing of the kids being turned into donkeys - who came up with that idea when they were writing the movie?
"Okay, so we've got them all going off to this island to do a bunch of stuff their parents won't let them do, probably because it's shady stuff, and then they get busted by the cops? How about that?"
"No no no, I've got a better idea. When they go off to have fun, let's make them turn into donkey's! That'll work!"
So anyway, you throw something pretty hard and fast down some slicked wood, and knock over some things that are pretty important. They're important enough that somebody spent some serious time inventing a machine to set them up in a very specific way (so they could be knocked down again).
Socks, 70's music, black lights, destruction - sign me up.
That whole Pleasure Island scene freaked me out as a kid. It was almost as scary as Return to Oz. Those guys that have the wheels as hands were REALLY freaky.