Ping Table Pong Tennis
By any definition, it's on.For some reason, we started playing ping pong in the last week. Wait, I know why--Gloria was in Shreveport, and Eli 16.10s girlfriend was in Detroit. So we had extra time on our hands to watch Major League Fishing, the World Series of Poker, the World Cup, play tennis--and play ping pong.
It got intense.
Eli won our last match, two games to one, but the points were long and intense, and he's suddenly hitting a topspin forehand. "Hey, if you find that ping pong trophy, can I have it?" he asked.
That's the family ping pong trophy, which I got for $2 way back.
"I'd like to have that," he said. "It took a long time." He laughed.
"I'll look," I said. "I think it's in the basement. I'll look for it later."
"Later?" he asked.
"Not right now," I said. "I've got things to do."
"Like what?" he asked.
"Watch ping pong videos," I said.
"I KNEW IT!" he said. "You can't do that. That's what I was going to do!"
After an hour of videos, we're clearly not playing ping pong anymore. It's table tennis now. He wants lessons. It's a thing.
We went to Outback later, and I was in the bathroom, thinking about table tennis, and I had a splash of insight (I say "splash" because I was at the urinal, and it seems appropriate).
All right, to understand what I realized, you need to go here and watch the guy murdering the topspin forehand. You'll see everything you need in ten seconds.
I came back and sat down. "I just had an insight," I said, and he started laughing. "If you learn how to hit a real topspin forehand, you need to learn how to do it with your left hand, too."
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, mimic the motion with your left hand," I said. "Really fast."
He started doing it. "I really don't--OH MY GOD IT'S A GLOVE SAVE."
"That's right," I said, with a grin so wide it must have reached outside my face. "You learn how to hit a topspin forehand left-handed, and you're improving your glove save."
"How do you DO that?" he asked.
"I just went to pee and my mind wandered," I said.
<< Home