Over forty years ago, I met my wife Liz. Ever the romanticist, I asked her out to play ping pong. Having grown up in British Guyana, she immediately corrected me. It’s “table tennis, not ping pong!”
How provincial. “Okay, Liz, let’s play a game of table tennis, as you call it.”
My patronizing tone didn’t last long. Unaware Liz had a black belt in table tennis, I was summarily humiliated, spanked, and whipped, although under different circumstances, the aforementioned activities might have made for a far more interesting first date. When she wasn’t spinning the ball like a top, she was slamming it down my throat. Final score: 21-5.
“Want to play again?” Liz’ eyes widened.
To protect the sanctity of male superiority I would have to counter-attack. But I was hopelessly outgunned. I would therefore have to resort to what all men do in similar situations. They cheat.
I was first to serve. I spun around, feigned left, feigned right, performed a mini-break dance, and then dropped a perfectly ordinary and uncontested serve down the middle of the table.
Liz: “You can’t do that. You can’t jump around like that!”
Me: “Show me the rule book. Say, what’s that over there, behind you?”
Boy, what a sucker. She turned her head and before she knew what hit her, it was 2-0, my favor. A few plays later, I purposely mixed up the score in my favor, argued about it, and finally relented by remarking, “Well, if you need a point that bad, I’ll give it to you.”
With each hideous stunt, the game of the Guyanese Gunner disintegrated. She made so many unforced errors that Stevie Wonder, Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles, Andre’ Bocelli, and any assortment of blind and/or dead singers would have beaten her handily. Moreover, since that fateful day, I have “owned” my wife in ping pong, despite her superior talent. This fact eats at her soul and is the primary reason I sleep on my stomach and keep sharp scissors out of sight.
Fast forward forty years. I challenge Liz to what I purposely characterize as a “ping pong” game. “Can you beat an old man with Parkinson’s,” I ask. “If you lose, you’ll have lost to an old man with Parkinson’s. If you win, you’ll have beaten an old man with Parkinson’s.”
It doesn’t get any easier.