Bowling with Barack

…Almost.

Last Thursday, one of the employees at my internship got all the interns into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a few rounds of bowling. Mind you, last Thursday was Barack Obama’s 50th birthday. He was, however, in Chicago celebrating with his family/fundraising for 2012… not bowling with us.

Still, we had a blast. After we went through intense security, we roamed the building, aimlessly trying to find the alley. We finally succeeded and found two-lanes, a large cupboard of questionable shoes, and more bowling balls than most bowling alleys have waiting for us.

The Truman Bowling Alley, as it’s called, is filled with pictures of Presidents bowling throughout time. My favorite is probably the picture of Nixon, where he’s committing an obvious foot foul. Oops.

Our liberal group gathered around Obama’s action shot, took a picture for our bosses stuck back at work, made some jokes about taking down Bush’s frame, and finally got down to bowling.

We divvied up; Team Awesome versus Team Female Condom (this is what happens when you work at Planned Parenthood). After about two hours, we were summoned to go. It was a nice break from the work day, as well as a weird way to celebrate our President’s birthday.

On our way out, we exited right across from the West Wing of the White House. I’ve never been on a tour, but from what I understand, getting to see the inside of the West Wing is fairly difficult. Our guide stopped us in the parking lot, and explained where we were. RIGHT OUTSIDE OF THE SITUATION ROOM. “You know those photos of Obama, Hillary, and everyone else watching the mission of the raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound? That happened right on the other side of this wall”. Too. Cool.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day. It was definitely one of the best so far this summer in Washington. So now, if you hear me telling people I went bowling at the White House for Obama’s birthday, you know the full (technical) story.

LZ