Our highness is a slightly beat-up ping-pong table.
That’s right. The people who hang out at our apartment now bow to the royal almighty goodness of King Pong.
It all started when Beaker and I were driving down his road, and he pointed the table out to me. Very nonchalant, he was. Just, “Look. By the side of the road. Ping-pong table.” And I’m like, “Hmm.”
I noticed it each time we drove by that day.
Cut to at my apartment, later that night. I’m sitting on the futon, with my chin on the back, talking to Shawn as she’s goofing off in the kitchen.
“Guess what Beaker and I saw today, by the side of the road?”
“What?”
“A ping-pong table. It’s in good shape. Someone’s just throwing it away.”
Shawn has been on a self-imposed, “I go out too much” house arrest for about a week now. This conversation happened when she was one weekend in, all ready feeling all cooped up and hot with cabin fever.
So she proceeds to freak the fuck out.
“Are you CRAZY?! Go! GO GET IT! I’ll clean up these boxes here. Go! Before it’s gone! See? I’m sweeping, moving these boxes, it’ll be cleared up before you get back. What is wrong with you? Why are you sitting there laughing? GO!”
Beaker and I hurry out the door, then begin the always-embarrassing process of swiping something from a stranger’s garbage. He’s Sampson, I’m Son. And the ping-pong table? Is fucking HEAVY.
But we get it home. And now, it’s all about the King Pong.
There are various score boards marked up around the house. We’ve both bought and lost many, many balls. Arguments used to be settled “on the table, now!” but it turns out that I don’t win at ping-pong very often, and I stopped agreeing to the bouncy duels.
Places where I’ve been hit with ping-pong balls, during play: Fingers, eyeball, crotch, ass.
New rule Shawn and I created: Must drink every time the score is tied.
White or orange – what is superior ball color? Orange.
Number of times I have come home, only to find Shawn in a Forrest-Gump-like trance, playing wall ball at an alarming rate of speed: Countless.
Current function of ping-pong table: Present-wrapping station.
