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.