On the weekend, Katy and I took our nephew out bowling. We were about halfway through the game when a boy (maybe 14yo) came up to our lane and picked up the bowling ball I had been using off our rack. At first I thought he was being silly, but when he turned to walk away with my bowling ball, I stopped him and said that I was still using it.
As he put it back down, I heard his mother (or who I assume was his mother) whisper angrily at him “Over there” and point at the wall behind us where all the spare bowling balls were.
I was a bit put off by the mother’s reaction, so I watched him as he picked his ball and went back to his lane and immediately start bowling. By himself. And I don’t just mean that he was the only one bowling (which is true as well), but it was as if his mother wasn’t even in the same room. The whole time she sat virtually unmoving except for her fingers on her mobile phone, either playing some inane game (that didn’t seem to bring any pleasure to her judging from her facial expression) or sending messages to people more important than her son standing in front of her.
