TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

When I nervously walked into Westchester Hall on a recent Thursday evening, the room was mostly silent, aside from the occasional shuffling of papers and the steady, rhythmic voice emanating from the woman at the front of the room: B-9, I-20,G-47, N-32.

I was filled with that unsettling grade-school sensation of being the only one who showed up late and unprepared on a test day. I was about to play public bingo for the very first time, and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

All of the players sitting at the long, narrow tables situated around the brightly lit room were deep in concentration, scanning the one, two, three, sometimes four, sheets of paper in front of them for the number that had just been called.

Prior to my conversation with Brenda Ratliff, executive director of the Volunteer Center of Kern County, my knowledge of the game came from two places:

The marathon matches of pirate bingo my family plays every Thanksgiving, and the scene where Dan Aykroyd takes Jamie Lee Curtis to play on their first date in "My Girl."

That's it.

The woman at the buy-in counter kindly attempted to explain how the multiple stacks of paper and the dobber worked. I'm sure she noticed the confusion written all over my face, because before she sent me off to collect my touch screen computer, smiled at me and said, "This isn't your grandmother's bingo."

She was right. Bingo has moved well beyond being a staple of weeknight entertainment in retirement homes. And these games, which the Volunteer Center began hosting in 1995, are no exception.

"We get people of all ages coming out to play," Ratliff told me. "We have anywhere from 18- to 90-year-olds."

The pots range in value from $250 to $1,000 and are given away several times each night, in addition to lots of door prizes.

But back to that touch-screen computer: The machine is what I'd like to think of as the tablet of the bingo-ing world. Slightly shorter than an iPad, and about an inch and a half or so thick, the gadget comes with a minimum $25 buy-in.

These portable gaming titans feature a live feed of the caller as she pulls out a number from the maelstrom of plastic ping-pong balls whirling around in the glass case at the caller's station, allowing the player to start searching for the next number before it's even called.

They also play up to 76 individual bingo boards on your behalf (the number of programmed cards varies depending on how much you pay). All you do is tap the "enter" button on the screen when the caller pulls out a number, and the machine does the rest.

Fortunately, I sat down across from some seasoned bingo players, mother-and-daughter duo Jennifer and Cheryl Day. Both were incredibly friendly and went above and beyond to help me make sense of this newfangled bingo.

Throughout the evening, Cheryl taught to me how each of the 13 games I played worked (there are up to 25 in a day), how to highlight my board in anticipation of the next round with her bright yellow dobber, and even expertly pointed out the numbers I failed to stamp on my own board while keeping track of her own.

After my initial confusion cleared, I developed my own system and managed to stay one step ahead of the caller instead of scrambling to keep up.

Soon enough, I was hooked. I didn't even care about winning (I didn't) or the money (but it would've been nice). I simply enjoyed every satisfying opportunity I had to smush my red dobber down on the page.

And while bingo is, in essence, gambling, it's also more than that.

For Jennifer, a stay-at-home mom, it's a guaranteed opportunity to get out of the house and have a good time every week. For Cheryl, it's a chance to relax after work and spend time with her daughter.

For Ratliff, who can be found there every Thursday working for free along with the rest of the staff, it's a way to earn much-needed funds for her beloved Volunteer Center.

"Our nonprofits throughout Kern County have all dealt with the issues of the economic downturn of the last few years; we've all had to become extremely creative in ways to generate revenue," she said. "That's why we're involved in bingo at all -- so we can earn money and continue to support those nonprofits in our community."

Perhaps Cheryl said it best: "It's just fun."

Whatever the reason, by the end of the night I could proudly say without even the slightest bit of irony or pretense that I loved playing bingo. And I will be back, ideally with a group of friends, and perhaps even a troll doll for good luck.

All right -- so the troll might be a little ironic.