As September approaches, I've started to think about how I'll miss the small town mentality and makeshift amusement of shoreline hoi polloi when I'm back in the city. But then Friday night occurred, and I realized that's all bullshit. If I spend much more time with my home friends, I am going to lose an eye or a limb. AT LEAST.
I was at my friend Neal's house, and everyone moved into the garage for some beer pong, just like the good old days. What we forgot is that Neal's garage is now merely a dusty shell of the party central it was in high school. I mean, there's like, a car in there now. What is up with that nonsense?
As a result, we had to pool our resources to start the game. After a fruitless search for ping-pong balls, Neal announced that he would be back bearing gifts, and ran inside the house. When he emerged, he was wearing a muscle shirt that he had not donned previously; clearly, he meant business. He also held in his hand, three small foam spheres. "They're not ping pong, but they're balls!" Neal prolifically shouted from atop the stairs, and all attendees cheered in united victory. I'm not a nice enough person to have told everyone that I had witnessed Neal's golden retriever licking his own ass, and then salivating all over these balls not 5 minutes earlier.
Then, the guys attempted to craft a table out of odds and ends. They had two planks of wood and two saw horses. The two saw horses would suffice to stabilize one side and the middle, but what would support the other side? My friends Matt and Pat found a swivel chair on wheels to use as a third saw horse. However, they soon realized that, in fact, one third of this table was on wheels, and things on wheels tend to move when force is applied. Of course, this only became apparent after half the table had rolled out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street.
"I hate this place," I thought to myself.
So they decided to stop the wheels from moving by blocking them with different garage objects. They did not choose the ordinary cinder blocks next to the table, nor the wildly safe looking pieces of scrap wood next to the car. Instead, they chose to secure their pong table with: a skill saw, a wood stapler, a blowtorch, and a full tank of propane.
"WOAH there, hold on!" I exclaimed. "Before we start this, let me run out to the car and fetch my barrel of rattle snakes and baby mountain lions. Then we'll spill beer on them and throw shit-covered balls at them. If we're going to test Murphy's Law to its very limits, let's not be lazy about it."
At the time, all I could think about was how stupid this scenario would sound if someone got hurt. But you know, now that I'm looking back on it, if I died in a beer pong accident where everyone got stapled in the face, lost an appendage and then burst into flames, it might have almost been worth it.