Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen...

When I was little and my parents would take me to the fair, they always tried to carefully steer me through the crowd, past all of the carnival games, straight to the rides. Why? Goldfish. Oh how I loved them. Actually I didn’t so much love goldfish as I loved winning goldfish. It gave me some kind of rush. I must have brought home hundreds of those little guys, which is why my parents weren't too eager to encourage my habit.

Initially my parents would just throw my little swimming prizes into one of those glass bowls and set them on the kitchen counter. But they soon realized goldfish didn’t survive that long when we did that. I guess that's what we got for turning to cartoons for tips on how to take care of fish. Who knew Tom and Jerry was such an unreliable source?

No, they needed a tank, complete with faux shrubbery, a water filtration system, a heater, and a light. Thanks mom & dad.

So yeah, it was the craziest thing you ever saw. I was an absolute master at getting those ping pong balls into those fish bowls. If you gave me three chances that just meant I was coming home with three gold fish. It was a sight to behold. You’ve never seen an eight year old with such accuracy, such form.

************

Flash forward twenty years… Replace the fishbowls with blue cups, and the fish with beer. Keep the ping pong balls. What do we get? Beer pong, or Beruit to those who went to school at one of the many obscure northeast colleges.

Perhaps it’s because I was forced into early retirement when my mother finally grew tired of finding fish floating lifelessly at the top of the tank, or on the floor, and having to dispose of them.Yes we found one on the floor. It was Wendal's second suicide attempt, and that time around he succeeded. Rather disturbing.

Or maybe over the years my aim and depth perception had deteriorated. That happens with age right?

OR it could very well be that I simply preferred the taste of beer peppered with with whatever the ball managed to collect during its journey across the filthy floor, and I preferred to drink said beer from a cup that twenty of my closest acquaintances and/or strangers have already drank from.

I have no clue what it is? Or why it is, but now, I seriously SUCK at beer pong. I mean really suck. I’m the fat kid with glasses and asthma and one leg shorter than the other standing on the playground watching as each of my classmates around me is picked to join a side for kickball. That’s me but for beer pong. Only my handicap isn’t so apparent.

For the most part, my friends know not to ask me to be their partner, but people who don't know just how bad I am, always ask. And though I try to tell them that I suck, they never listen.

“I don’t care how bad you are,” They say.

Oh but they do care. They always care.

Every time I see people setting up for a game of beer pong, I ask myself, What happened to that little eight year old? The little girl who would stand waiting for her fish to be bagged, smirking at the pathetic kids who had to rely on their parents to win theirs. In your FACE! she would be saying in her head.

I guess that's what I get. I got cocky and then sloppy. I bet its those same kids, the ones I once mocked, and wrote off as losers... who are now forcing me to chug cup after cup after cup of cheap filthy beer. Oh how the mighty have fallen.


Karma... really is a b!tch.