My Flash Lighted Before My Eyes
One of the first pieces of furniture my wife and I bought when we got married was a ping pong table. We were 20, in college, and incredibly happy. Those first years when everything is new and exciting. You remember. We didn’t have much, but we got to return home to the same place every day. That was all we needed.
Without much money, we could only choose a few large items to purchase. The whole argument about spending one third of your life in bed made enough sense for us to buy a comfortable mattress. The bed frame was too high for the budget, so it rested low on the floor.
The only other major thing we bought was a ping pong table. It took up our whole living room. You had about two feet of space between the end of the table and the wall. We couldn’t fit anything else in that room. Priorities.
We got pretty good, banging that ball back and forth. Each month we developed a new serve or spinning skill. Upon returning from classes, we would turn on some music, take our sides, and start playing. An hour would go by, and hunger awoke. Pause for food. I think we were in the grilled cheese section of our culinary journey. Turn on a movie? No, back to ping pong.
My first official birthday gift given as a husband was two cats. We named them Pacha and Kuzko. I still think The Emperor's New Groove is one of Disney’s best. Random fact about the cats - they got fat. Not pudgy fat, just hefty. The vet tried to lecture me about this, but I had the proper retort, “they are cats, end of conversation.”
The cats loved ping pong. They would sit in the living room and watch us, heads swinging left to right, like spectators at a tennis match. They would also chase after loose balls. Sometimes they would jump on the table and interrupt the game if the back-and-forth was taking too long. Every now and then Pacha would make this strange gurgled sound, like his meow was buffering. He always did it while staring directly at the ball, like it was taunting him. It was weird.
Eventually life got busy. We got new jobs, switched towns, and entered a new phase of life. The ping pong table didn’t survive. We would still catch a game here or there. The random party where a table was set up in the garage. The church retreat at a lodge with a rec room. While we were never as good as the earlier versions of ourselves, we retained a respectable amount of tenacity for the game.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. My wife and I got enough constant access to a ping pong table that we got competitive again. Point after point and game after game, we slowly morphed into our younger selves. Talking trash, ball spiking, and laughing all the way. We are having a whale of a time.
At one point my wife smacks a ball past me. I go to retrieve it, but when I turn to come back, my foot catches a crack in the pavement. I fall forward, my head dropping toward the ground at warp speed, when my eye swipes about an inch from the corner of the table.
My wife bursts out laughing.
Still shaken, I say without thinking, “my flash just lighted before my eyes.” Now we are both laughing. I can’t walk, and I can’t talk. Double whammy.
I love my wife. I love ping pong. Last spring we celebrated our twentieth anniversary. I hope we are still playing twenty years from now. I hope I keep falling all over myself.
One thing I’m sure of, she’ll always be there laughing at me. I’m a lucky man.
