Sometimes a marketing email arrives in your inbox with just what you need in month 24 of a pandemic. For me, this email arrived in mid-February, and it was advertising an event called BINGOAT: Bingo + Goats, at the Faith Lutheran Church in Arlington. 

In total transparency, my goat-obsessed BFF and I first tried to sign up for the goat yoga session held just before, which was run by the same organizer (and involved the same goats). Alas, goat yoga tickets sold out in less than two hours.

Not so for goat bingo, which yoga teacher Beth Wolfe and goat owner and veterinarian Maureen Roberts came up with as another way to get people access to the healing power of the goats. Wolfe, who teaches trauma-informed yoga, began incorporating animals into her practice a few years ago. 

“We look for new ways to incorporate the goats into some silliness,” Wolfe says. “You see people holding the goats, you see them relax, their blood pressure goes down. They truly make people happy.”

Reader? I was SOLD. And so we turned up on a recent Sunday afternoon to try to catch a bit of that vibe and partake in all that BINGOAT had to offer. 

1:25 p.m.: We head into the church hall. A nice man wearing a Yoga Husband t-shirt is checking vaccination cards, something we hadn’t anticipated, but are happy about nonetheless. Yes, we bought these $40 per person BINGOAT tickets without even thinking to ask about vaccine or mask requirements — that’s how much we wanted to hang out with the goats.

1:29: p.m.: We get our bingo cards and realize we have no idea if we were supposed to bring our own markers. What bingo rookies.

1:30 p.m.: There are Crayola magic markers on the table, phew.

1:32 p.m.: Our group settles in at a table with another player who seems not to be a rookie — she’s wearing a shirt from another goat farm. (Is that a faux pas? Doesn’t appear so.)

1:35 p.m.: Wolfe welcomes everyone to BINGOAT. She lets us all know the goats live a few hours away in Salem, Virginia, and “make the trek to Arlington about once a month to do their goat-related things.” That includes the previous yoga class and, the next night, a Goat Cuddling + Cider session at Lost Boy Cider in Alexandria.

1:36 p.m.: It will surprise you not at all that the first rule of BINGOAT is that when you get a bingo, you must yell “Bingoat!”. The second rule is that if a goat is trying to get away from you, you LET THEM. Nice to see consent rules apply to the goats.

1:37 p.m.: They’re about to bring in the goats. Wolfe begins playing the goats’ walkup music, which is, appropriately, “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music. 

1:38 p.m.: Wolfe notes that there are three newborn goats among the group today, which leads to a flurry of excited chatter.

1:40 p.m.: THE GOATS ARE HERE. There are about a dozen of them total. One is named Donkey (real funny, guys), and another is named Pickles. Approximately 50% of them poop on the floor within seconds of walking into the hall. (Oh yeah, if you are goat poop-averse, BINGOAT, goat yoga, and other goat-related activities are not for you.)

1:45 p.m.: Everyone’s trying to get their quintessential goat photo and the bingo caller, Yoga Husband — aka Jim Norton, Wolfe’s husband — decides it’s time to start the game. Seriously sir, how are we supposed to listen to the numbers while these goats are hanging out under our table??

1:50 p.m.: We’re playing traditional bingo, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines. One of my companions marks O-68 on my card when it’s called because I am not paying attention. Thanks buddy.

1:55 p.m.: Someone wins bingo. I don’t know, whatever.

1:56 p.m.: Now that the adult goats have made their entrance and gotten comfortable, it’s time for the baby goats to come in. Everyone, goats and humans alike, is squealing. (The baby kids bleat loudly and pitifully when they don’t know where their mom is. The people, well, they’re just overwhelmed with the cuteness.)

2 p.m.: We’re playing another bingo game. Someone else wins and dutifully yells, “Bingoat!” The prize is apparently bingo-themed scratchers from the Virginia lottery that could be worth up to $70,000 — but probably aren’t.

2:05 p.m.: It’s break time to hang with the goats. With people getting up from their tables, the goats have a lot more leeway to explore, and they get on top of tables, hungrily eyeing the bingo cards or anything else left by humans. The babies have converged near a hay bale, and a line forms to take pictures holding these tiny goats.

2:15: p.m.: BINGOAT restarts with an “H” game, meaning you have to fill all the B’s, all the O’s, and a line across the middle including the free space connecting the two.

2:25 p.m.: The H takes a long time. Yoga Husband has stopped calling out the N’s because they don’t even matter in this game. Someone yells “BINGOAT” and walks up triumphantly.

2:26 p.m.: IT’S A FALSE ALARM. The player didn’t know we were playing the H. Classic Bingo fail.

2:27 p.m: It occurs to me I am actually rather close to completing an H on my card.

2:28 p.m.: Yoga Husband calls out B-14. BAM, that fills out one side of my H. And then immediately, he calls out O-71. I HAVE BINGOAT.

2:29 p.m.: I yell AND raise the decorative sign left on the table for this very purpose, a little too excitedly, probably, considering there are pre-teens and even a few children here.

2:30 p.m.: Yoga Husband verifies my win. I never win anything, so this feels pretty great, I gotta say.

2:40 p.m.: After one more bingo game – traditional, no one wants too much bingo cutting into goat time – it’s a selfie-free-for-all with the goats. After sidling up to a goat named Pippa to get a pic of her and my winnings, I wander around to chat with some of the other people there.

2:45 p.m.: A group of 20-something women are working on their social media posts about goat bingo. Meanwhile, I strike up a conversation with some fellow attendees. Edea Portlance of Del Ray is a spin instructor who knows Wolfe and says she has attended her previous animal-related events, which also include kangaroo yoga (wait, what?) and bunny meditation.

2:46 p.m.: Portlance explains that she had an extra ticket and called up her friend Cheyenne Boulware, also of Alexandria, and asked if she wanted to go. Boulware, admittedly hungover, wasn’t sure if she was up for it. “I told her this was the best cure,” Portlance said. Boulware says she “feels rejuvenated” after BINGOAT.

2:50 p.m.: Things are wrapping up, and I check in with Roberts of Walnut Creek Farm as she leashes up the goats. She and Wolfe go way back – they attended high school together – and started the goat events as a way to have some fun and combine their passions. (In addition to owning the farm, Roberts is an emergency critical care veterinarian.). “I said, ‘as long as the goats aren’t stressed, I’m all for it,’” she says. “And they don’t care, they love it.”

2:55 p.m.: Chairs are being stacked as people grab their last selfies and pet the goats one more time. Wolfe and other volunteers prepare to do the thorough mopping that comes after any indoor goat event.

3 p.m.: The goats are loaded into their goatmobile and get ready to rest up for their final engagement before heading home.