It's What We've Renamed "Tay-Tay"

My brother and I are close these days. We talk about books and our family and our lives and our hobbies and our dating. And lately, we've been talking about ping pong. You see, we grew up playing the game (sport? leisure activity? effective method for never having a girlfriend?). There was a table in our house when we were young and, more importantly, we would play for hours a day during our annual summer trips to tahoe meadows. There were two green tables set up at the beach and you simply couldn't convince us that there was anywhere better to be. They were located up in the sand behind the main house and we would hoo ride our janky bikes up to them every morning. The first order of business was fighting to see who would have to play on the table with roots protruding from the ground at your feet. It wasn't an aesthetic preference or even one of balance. Rather, it was the desire to not repeatedly stub your shoeless toes inevitably resulting in a bruised, if not bloody, foot. Even that risk was worth the reward of winning a game or two, though. And there we'd sit for hours and hours. Sure, we'd occasionally venture into the water and we had some brief stints with volleyball, but ping pong remained a faithful, reliable source of entertainment for years and years.

Then I stopped playing. I grew into adolescence and we stopped going to the meadows. The table at home eventually warped from exposure and was discarded just like the mini pool table and tire swing before it. I can just imagine a graveyard of youthful accessories somewhere. A rusted tether ball pole bent around the remnants of a jungle gym, a shredded slip and slide draped over the top forming a crude shelter. Flat, faded red kickballs strewn about like shrapnel in a war zone, the heads of barbies and cabbage patch kids torn from their bodies and stained from dirt and grime. And my ping pong table sitting amongst it all, abandoned. My days of wielding that red and black paddle a distant memory. In time, I actually forgot how much I enjoyed playing. Sure, there was the occasional game during college at the student union or in the game room of that massive house I looked after for a week during law school. But the passion was gone and my drive to play was nonexistent.

Then my brother decided to revive the drive. He discovered that a friend of his in Brooklyn was a closet ping pong fan as well. After a few nights spent regaling each other with tales of past ping pong hegemony, they sought out and found a local club where they could play. After the first game, he was hooked again. He began going on a weekly basis and, more importantly, started describing the feeling of playing again to me. He painted a picture so vivid that I could feel the heft of the paddle in my hand and hear the pop of the ball off of the table. He reached a point where he could no longer call it ping pong. At this level of dedication, you are playing the sport of table tennis. And, at that point, I knew I was destined to reassociate myself and to become a true devotee. The only question was, who was I going to play with and where would this reinvention of my table tennis career take place?

Well, the who was not a terribly difficult problem to parse out. As it turns out, I have a solid 6 friends who have similar pasts with and proclivities for table tennis. Friends who had tables growing up or played at camp or school or wherever. Regardless of where the desire originated, I had a solid core of enthusiasts who would encourage my dream of playing again. The where, however, took a little more time. I searched for local clubs for a while only to be disappointed by their lack of organization or by the inability to get on a table with a friend of mine. Then, one night, my friend had an epiphany. It was around 4 in the morning after a night out. Brian and I were sitting on my couch theorizing on who would whoop who's ass if we finally found somewhere to play. The typical bullshitting that accompanies drunken late night Tiger Woods. I noticed Brian's eyes skirting around the room and saw a slight smile creep across his face as an idea developed in his head. Then, he turned to me and made the statement that would define our future table tennis career: "You know, a ping pong table would fit right here in your living room . . ." The idea seemed preposterous at first. But steadily its truth became apparent. We got up and stood at opposite ends of my carpet, pantomiming a game to see just how realistic it was. I looked up the dimensions of a table and we confirmed his theory with a tape measure. Indeed, a table would fit nicely right in my living room. But, a ping pong table in my living room? Did I dare to push the limits of interior decorating to such an extent?

It didn't take me long to realize that fate had handed me an opportunity and to embrace that opportunity wholeheartedly. In a matter of days, a week at the most, I found a table on craigslist. I borrowed a friend's truck (on the promise that he'd get the first game against me), went out to SF and picked up the disassembled apparatus. Took it home and laid it all out on my living room floor. Within a matter of 15 minutes, I had reassembled the table and turned it upright in the center of my carpet. Now, although I was virtually creaming my panties from the excitement of having my own table, I also was coherent enough to appreciate the absurdity of what I had done. I had a 9 foot by 5 foot ping pong table in the middle of my living room. A centerpiece that few, if any, had contemplated. A green monstrosity that consumed the majority of my open living space. I couldn't help myself as I started to laugh and laugh and laugh. Laughing at myself and at the game and at my friends and brother for encouraging this move. Laughing at the cliche of a bachelor that I had become. Laughing at the knowledge that I was going to fill that room with eager, competitive friends who would play for hours. Who would fill my living room with the pop of the ball off of the paddle, the thump of feet hitting the floor trying to save a slam and the shit talking that would inevitably ensue.

That same night it began and it hasn't stopped since. Late nights just become later when you have a table tennis table in your living room. Especially when you create a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's record. It's a game, it's a lifestyle, it's what we've renamed Tay-Tay. But, there will be more on that later.






Not the best rally in the world, but the only evidence I have so far.