Boss-Level Ping-Pong

FORREST GUMP: We were the first Americans to visit the land of China in, like, a million years or something like that, and somebody said that world peace was in our hands. But all I did was play ping-pong.

Some of my fondest teenage memories revolve around a ping-pong table set in the basement of my cousins’ house in Maine. We spent a couple of summers there as I was growing up, and the basement was our refuge against the mugginess (and bugginess) of the countryside. (As a SoCalifornian, I could take the heat. It was the moisture I couldn’t handle. Or the little, super-impossibly-irritating flies.)

But it was more than just our refuge. It was also our field of battle, where I learned (and became not-terrible) at ping-pong. (Or should I say “table tennis?) There were many, many fun-and-shout-filled hours of friendly competition. And joshing. And I learned more about my cousins and formed firmer friendships with them as a result of these daily bouts. I still cherish the memories.

In other words, it was all very much like this:

OK, fine. So our basement battles were not even a little bit like that match, which is actually available in its entirety on YouTube. In fact, I’m not even sure how those guys can see the ball, let alone track the otherworldly spin they put on it. The crowd reacts pretty much the same way I did. I wasn’t quite that loud, but it was close.

Attribution(s):“Table Tennis Championship Stamp” licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.