So I’m going to set the background for this as best I can without giving out any sensitive information. I was at a social gathering of friends a good 9 to 10 miles away from Poison Girl (going farther away from home). I unfortunately felt it in the best interests of my comfort and safety to leave earlier than I otherwise would have liked. (At the point where I left, I was done eating and was there only to socialize.)

I decided to go ahead and swing by and get in a few rounds of pinball. This was despite the distance and a significant detour off my route home. This pinball session of mine would start off innocently enough with a location personal best and high score of 169,260 on Dolly Parton. It would continue with a loop jackpot champion of 30M and a score of 289.8M+ on Iron Maiden. Then one quick, mediocre round of Old Olberholt (re-themed Mata Hari) scoring 156,510.

And, finally, I made my way down to Whirlwind.

I would run up 7.9M and get the ball stuck. Unfortunately, this would require a power cycle (and loss of game) to get up and playing again. What happened next could only be described as surreal. Eventually, the stuck ball would be freed after I played a sizeable chunk of this game with only two balls. (The game compensates for the missing ball; it is really not a player benefit to have only two balls instead of all three).

I had a monster of a game, maxing out the skyway tolls for starters. My performance would also feature three solid regular multiballs with a few quick multiballs thrown in. I would also get the mega door bonus at least once (might have been twice), and enough extra balls to make the maxed-out bonus well worth achieving. The score counter would rocket way past my previous grand champion and personal best of 48.15M+, to finally sign off with an absolutely mind-blowing 59,096,030. That’s nearly 11 million points higher, a huge margin on this game.

I anxiously await a chance to perform like this in a tournament. This represents just how capable I am as a player, and how far I have come. I remember when I considered it absolutely mind-blowing just to top 20M, let alone double or almost triple that. Now, it’s not out of the question for me to try to go for a score counter rollover (100M+).

Afterwards was a near-obligatory trip to the Galleria area Starbucks that’s open almost all night. I was up for a while, too…