What a great long weekend! It was so nice to have time off and spend time with friends and family. Our Thanksgiving meal couldn’t have gone any better, the food was amazing and I was not stressed at all. Everyone kept asking how come I wasn’t so worried about the meal – I don’t know why, I didn’t really think twice about it. Probably because I had my itinerary all planned out and everything went perfect!

Something funny did happen that day. For Jim’s birthday, which is tomorrow, I have been trying to get him a ping pong table. Now you may ask what on earth does a 33 year old man want a ping pong table for? I asked that too. So did about every store I went into. Everyone was convinced that I just needed ping pong balls, no paddles. I can’t tell you how many times I got asked “Really, you are going to play actual ping pong?” Geez folks, not all of us are booze hound Beirut or beer pong players 100% of our time, I mean a good sober game of competitive ping pong is a lot of fun and quite the workout.

Anyway, every place I looked the tables were close to $300 or higher. I mean, I love Jim but it didn’t seem worth it to me at the time . So I perused Craig’s list and Wala – I found a used ping pong table for $50. So I went out, picked it up and brought it home. Only to discover it was too big for the basement. I was very sad. But stored it in the garage and thought, oh well- it’s only a summer game. That was until I was at Target doing some shopping and saw a table on sale for $99 and it came in 4 pieces, meaning it would fit in the basement. It was like a sign from God. I asked the lady where they were and she told me they were sold out. She said to let her check other stores, so she did and wouldn’t you know it that moment a table had just arrived off the truck in the back.

So I walked out of Target so happy and proud of myself and with a table. A table that even fit into my little car and I carried into the garage all by myself. Wow, I totally just gave you the whole story instead of the funny moment on Turkey Day. So anyway, as I’m slaving away in the kitchen and not letting Jim get near (well he really didn’t want to) he decided he was going to clean the front porch and rake a few leaves that have fallen since our last big rake. I think nothing of it and just say “ok”. After about 20 seconds of minding my own biz in the kitchen I realize that the tables (tables cause now we have 2 ping pong tables) are in the garage he is about to open. I fling open the back door right as I see him standing there with the garage door opening and his puzzled face at the giant box in front of him.

"Hey!" I scream, wait wait. But at this point it is too late. I of course can’t run outside cause I’m in cooking clothes and no shoes and in my hand is a mixer full of potato remnants so scream for him to come back in. He refuses until he checks out the box only to discover he has ruined his birthday surprise. So I go to the basement, get out the gift bag full of paddles and tons of balls (I was persuaded to buy a lot more balls from the store guy for “adult games” – and no not the dirty kind). By the time I come back upstairs he is excited and I give him the gift and say Happy Birthday. He’s so excited that he immediately wants to take it to the basement. So I take a break and lug the 100 pound table to the basement.

It was a great surprise but doesn’t end well. We go to put the table together on Saturday and it was missing parts, uneven and just a disaster. We spent about 5 hours trying to put it together and finally gave up. Took it apart and returned it for our money back. It was totally destroyed by the time we returned it but we taped it up and didn’t care. I was so annoyed we bought a defunct product I didn’t even care it wasn’t ethical. I immediately wrote a bad review of the product and am back in the market for a ping pong table that comes in four pieces. Alright all you ping pong table makers reading my blog- send me a free sample!