Ping Pong

I was invited the other day to my first inter-office ping pong match the other day.  We have a break room large enough to hold a ping pong table and it's a great way to spend a coffee break.  However, I've stayed far away as my ping pong skills are terrible even in Canada.  In China, I was sure to be ridiculed. 

I watched a couple of matches between some coworkers and the stereotype is true!  They were damn good at ping pong.  I thought about sneaking off and leaving the room but they noticed so they ended their game and told me it was my turn. 

I pleaded with them explaining that I was a terrible at ping pong.  I said I was so bad I probably couldn't beat a child.  Well, sitting behind us in the corner of the room...was, in fact, a child.  One of the coworkers had his daughter there visiting her father at work until her mother could come pick her up.  The group thought this was perfect, my chance to be on a more even playing field.

They called the little girl up who was about 6 or 7 years old.  She took the ping pong paddle from her father and stood at the end of the table. After some encouragement I finally picked up my paddle and looked across at my competition.  This girl's head barely reached over the table top, her nose was running and her over-sized glasses kept sliding off her face but her stare was menacing. 

I figured I had a choice to either actually play against this girl, potentially win but come off as a jerk, or do the gracious thing, let her win and deal with the post game insults.  I made my choice...

This girl was going down!  I played my heart out, this was my Olympics.  Canada vs. China.  In the end, I destroyed her...by 2 points.  I was out of breath and sweating but she was pretty calm.  I tried to joke it off and thanked the girl for the game, told her that I got lucky.. but on the inside I was fist pumping like crazy and saying 'Take that you miniature human being!'

All in all, it was a good day but I don't think I'll be invited to play ping pong again anytime soon.