Balls, balls and pads!!

What do you do when someone donates around 30 bowling balls to you? Jumble Station received a call about whether or not we accept bowling balls and thinking that it was probably only one or two, we said okay! Imagine our shock when the lorry driver Hasrun delivered the 30 bowling balls and we had no idea what to do with them. That’s when we had the brainwave to call the nearest bowling centre which happened to be at the Summit Shopping Centre. The manager Mustafa Yassin was kind enough to allow JS to sell the bowling balls directly to the players at the bowling entre especially since there was a tournament on from 11pm till 1.30am that Sunday. So promptly at 9.30pm single mother Irene and I showed up at the bowling alley complete with the 30 bowling balls only to learn a couple of new things which we aren’t likely to forget. First off, all the bowling balls are not made equal – I used to think about the only thing differentiating each ball is the finger holding size per ball.. hah! Mustafa told us that balls weigh differently and the ones we brought over fell into two categories – the 10-11 pound category and the 13-14 pound category. The other differentiating factor was that each ball went according to the brand, some brands were more marketable than others, some were designed to spin as they roll, some were designed to give killer shots etc. Even the pricing was different – the lighter balls could be sold for RM80 and below while the heavier balls could be sold for RM100 and below. We also learnt that bowling balls were being sold from RM400 to a high of RM800 for the really high class model – so pricing our balls from RM100 and below should make it attractive for ardent bowlers! Well it turns out most Malaysians prefer the lighter balls and sadly we only had about 5 of these and these were quickly snapped but the rest could not attract any buyers even though we offered two balls at RM150 with a third ball given for free! In the end we left the remaining balls for Mustafa to try and flog them off to some newbie players but to date, there’s hasn’t been a call from him yet! And then JS received some 12 cartons of brand new “She” sanitary pads for our single parents in the usual day, night and promotional pack deals with the proviso that the single parents use these for themselves or if they want to sell to earn an income, the pricing must be close to the recommended retail price which was around RM9 for the daytime pads, RM10 for the night time. Again, the single parents and poor mums who received these were delighted because it meant they need not spend their own money buying these what more for their kids! Suhaibah for one who has two teenaged daughters is happy to get the pads because she says her financial situation is currently very tight and this batch of pads should last she and her daughters quite some time! Single mother Mariammah was amused to have been given sanitary pads but recognizes that this free gift will certainly help her save some cash considering that her salary is only RM750 a month with 3 boys to feed each month! And for single mother Mah who plans to sell the pads at the price recommended by the donor so that should greatly increase her monthly income to help feed her brood of kids. Anyone else out there with stuff to donate… just call or SMS 016-2202958 and we’ll be there in a jiffy!