At the beginning of April, Brent declared that we would have a round-robin ping pong challenge. Everyone who wanted to participate had to play against everyone else; standings would be kept and at the end of the month the winner would be awarded a Valuable Mystery Prize!
As it turned out, April was a really busy month for me, so I was pretty focused on getting things done and didn’t play more than a handful of games over the weeks. None of them were “challenge games” so they didn’t count in the standings. But then yesterday Brent reminded me it was the last day of the month and I hadn’t recorded any games in the brackets. Everyone else had, and the standings were pretty close: both Brent and James were 3-1, tied for first.
Keep in mind that it’s pretty serious around here. Everyone but me has their own paddle– Brian, feeling left out by the other guys, just bought a new one for himself this week. I don’t mind the generic Zing paddle we have, but Brent pointed out that using a paddle just because I’m comfortable with it is akin to driving a Fiat in the Indy 500 because I’m “used to” the Fiat. Wise words, Brent.
So I made some time in my schedule yesterday and threw down the gauntlet. I had four challenge matches to play, and I went through them one after the other. Based on previous challenge matches around Christmas, Brent calculated handicaps for everyone– as arguably the worst player in the office I was on the low end of that totem pole. I dispatched Brian and Nick without even needing the handicap; Brent and James proved a bit tougher but I finished them off as well.
Done! I went 4-0 to take the April championship. Clearly Brent will need to adjust my handicap for May’s games.
And the Valuable Mystery Prize? Well, it’s a little rubber ice mold that will create the Death Star in ice.
With a little imagination you can see it’s the Death Star. Pretty cool.
Ahh, how I miss the good old days when I was the undisputed, undefeated ping pong champion…