We’ve all been there before. You’re at someone’s family party, barbecue, wedding, etc. and the beer pong table is out. The younger people are playing beer pong or flip cup on the tables and the older partygoers are sitting in lawn chairs just hanging out watching you play. Maybe there is an inflatable table floating around in the pool. Everyone is having a great time.
And then it happens. One or two of them walk over and start asking about the rules. You can tell by that twinkle in their eye that they really want to play, but feel weird asking. After a little prodding you convince them to take a shot or two. Next thing you know, they are calling next game and the older folks are leaving their lawn chairs to come over and play. You’ve lost the table for the rest of the party.
It’s always hilarious when older people play beer pong. I don’t know exactly why, but it is. Most of them seem to shoot a little goofy, and they can’t seem to remember the rules no matter how many times you explain them. The mothers and grandmothers look truly embarrassed to be playing, like their parents just walked in on them making out as teenagers.
Most of us have different personas on the beer pong table. The way we speak and yell in the heat of competition are completely opposite from the way we act around our parents, coworkers, and non-ponging friends. It’s funny; when an older person gets on the table it’s almost as if we have an inner conflict… We don’t want to yell and cuss or talk too much trash, but we also want to tease them a little and have some fun. It’s a fine line to walk between just having fun and making sure not to make ourselves look like complete assholes. No matter how much older we get, most of us still feel like we’re going to get in trouble when we pong around older people.
It’s great when the older players start dishing out the trash talk and hitting cups. You never expect to lose a game of beer pong to someone who doesn’t play competitively, but every once in a while you will play a newbie and find yourself on the ropes. Suddenly everyone is cheering against you and hoping the old guys pull out the win.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome to play in big tournaments like the Masters of Beer Pong with a minimum of $100,000 on the line. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to win that amount of money in a game of beer pong. But sometimes it’s great to see someone new and completely unexpected experience the fun of playing beer pong for the first time. It’s good to think back every once in a while and remembered why we started playing the game: We wanted to have fun.
