Come with me on a festive sober night out: Boom Battle Bar edition

Alas! Christmas time is here. Bournemouth becomes truly magical this time of year and full of Christmas spirit. Sadly, me and my friends are feeling rather low at the moment with more assignments hanging over us than the amount of presents we will probably receive. So, I thought I’d get my group together for some much-needed TLC and have a games night at Boom Battle Bar.

But I’m not that kind! I spiced it up a bit and made it a no-alcohol challenge. Could we resist the urge? Let’s find out!

Pool

We began by playing pool. My friends and I – giddy at the site of alcohol but going strong so far – split into groups of two. Zak (left photo, in red) and I were made team captains; bad idea, because I can’t for the life of me understand the rules. The game began on a rather special note. As you can see in the above, I hardly managed to hit the white ball, and needed a tutorial from Zak’s team members, #awks. I guess you could say, in the wise words of Cynthia Erivo, that I was holding plenty of space between the white and the coloured balls… Feeling embarrassed, the vodka Coke cravings were high, but I persevered.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who struggled. Our techniques were all quite *interesting* and we accidentally bumped into each other with the cue sticks multiple times. It was a shame that I made the evening a sober challenge as the number of times I asked: “Do I strike the white ball first?” would have made for the perfect drinking game.

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My spirits heightened, though, after finding out my team scored. It was of course all thanks to me, and not because I had people on my team who at the very least knew what ball to strike first…

Break

After the game, we all decided to take a break. Despite craving alcohol – the losing team in particular – we decided to fill ourselves with food and water instead. My team revelled in the fact that we’d won pool and we eagerly anticipated the next game: Shuffleboard.

Carrie and I decided to celebrate our victory further in the toilet. After pressing a button, it turned into a disco. I had only ever seen this on social media videos and always thought it was fake, so I was very excited to be proven wrong. We danced around and hoped that we weren’t disrupting anyone’s toilet trip – sorry to anyone we may have disturbed!

Who said that you had to drink to party?

Shuffleboard 

Now onto shuffleboard. None of us had played it before, so this was a pretty cool experience. I hoped I’d also pick it up naturally – after all, it couldn’t get any worse than my attempt at pool.

We split up into teams, with Zak and I leading again, the each group took it in turns to practice. Thankfully we were also given instructions on how to play the game, otherwise, no one would have stood a chance.

Note: Shuffleboard looks much easier than it is! I wish I could say that I aced it, but I did even worse than before. Sad times.

The red team completely annihilated us. Their technique was slow and steady, which enabled them to score a whopping 28 points. My team, on the other hand, scored a humble nine points. By this point, my team and I’s cravings for a drink were at an all-time high. We gulped water and pretended it was a very diluted wine. The red team were too enthralled by their victory to think about alcohol.

With the games now over, we finished our water and laughed over our attempts at both games. I was probably being laughed at, but that’s beside the point…

The result… 

I wish I could say that we succeeded in our sober mission. Unfortunately for this article, that did not happen in the end. We finished the night by celebrating our efforts and the festive season with alcoholic drinks. Cheers!

Considering it’s a bar, it would have been rude not to, right?

FYI: If you’re low on money, then make sure to check out Boom’s Christmas packages.