Night Out

Last week we got a babysitter and my wife and I went to a little get together at another couple’s home with a bunch of friends. So everyone there was married and almost all of them had kids.

How we all got out of our houses without those kids is a small miracle. We probably had half the babysitters in town tied up that night. We played a few party games and ate several different kinds of spinach dip. Apparently spinach dip in a bowl made of bread is the new thing to bring to parties.

After the games were over and everyone was full of bread and spinach dip the host mentioned that he had a Ping-Pong table in the garage. This announcement of course was met with the idea of actually playing some Ping-Pong in the garage. So before you could say “Lame game” all us guys were in the garage around the Ping-Pong table.

I hate Ping-Pong. Ping-Pong to me ranks below foosball, which I will actually play once in a while. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I am terrible at it. My hand-eye coordination is a joke.

If you want a good table game then give me air hockey any day. Of course, my favorite table game in the whole wide world is pool. Trying to play a tennis game that was built for Barbie does not even compare to the ultimate greatness of shooting those solids and stripes across that felt covered slate.

I can’t even play pool well. In fact I am a terrible pool player. But I love it so much that I hope to one day own a Ping-Pong table so my kids will play on it while I play pool in another room.

I guess Ping-Pong is a good family game while pool lends itself to seedy joints that you don’t want to see your kids in. You never hear of a motorcycle gang fight in a Ping-Pong hall. And while it might give you a good spank, nobody really considers a Ping-Pong paddle a potential weapon.

So I stood around in the garage for a few minutes while the other men sorted out the game. Just as the nauseating sound of the little white ball started filling the room I dodged back into the house to escape the torture. When I made it to the front room full of talking women I realized that I had not escaped after all.

This is where that whole “Out of the frying pan, into the fire” thing comes in. I had forgotten about The Story. I have been married for sixteen years now and learned about The Story early on in the adventure. I don’t know how I forgot about The Story, I was probably distracted from all that Ping-Pong, but as soon as I walked into the room full of women it all came flooding back to me.

All you women out there and you men who are married to women know what I’m talking about here. The thing you must remember when a bunch of people get together who happen to be women, is the sharing of the child birth experience, The Story. I don’t care if you’re at a church potluck, a board room meeting, a back yard barbecue, or a baby shower. If those women get off by themselves for just five minutes they will be telling their child birth stories and the stories of their women friends who aren’t there to represent themselves.

You better be prepared for bone chilling tales of six weeks of labor only to give birth to a 50 pound baby with a head the size of the moon. If you’re lucky there won’t be any hand gestures or re-enactments.

Then all the stats; size, weight, hair/no hair, if hair, straight or curly and what color, eye color, skin color, foreign language skills, musical ability and so on and so on. It’s getting so sophisticated now that I hear APGAR scores like an SAT for newborns. “Our oldest got a 9 but little Sean only scored a 7 at first. He’s worked hard to bring it up since then. His father said he’s not driving until he gets his act together.”

As soon as I had walked into the room I began hearing things about breaking water, amniotic fluid, and stitches. Nothing is ever off limits when it comes to women and The Story. I guess I can understand this because it has got to be one of the most painful, hardest, most painful, happiest, and most painful events in a woman’s life. What experience in a man’s life even compares? I can’t think of anything, except maybe Ping Pong.