144 Ping Pong Balls

Ping pong balls are hard to find. Well, hard isn't the right word. But you'd think they might have some at Walgreen's, or the grocery store. Nope. Well, ok, then they must have one at Target, right? Especially that crazy Super-Target with guitars and olde-style popcorn kettles? Nope. Surely they must have them at one of those big strip-mall sporting goods stores, but do you want to take a 45-minute bus ride both ways just to buy some ping pong balls? The only other place is Wal-Mart, and you probably don't want to go there on account of their being all evil and everything.

These are the considerations which, about one week ago today, led me to do a bit of e-commerce. Lo and behold, the good ol' internets had tons of ping pong balls, and beyond that a star-ranking system for balls, super-balls that are supposedly indestructable, all manner of paddles, and my favorite, a robot that shoots ping pong balls of various spins and velocities (this one runs for $695).Well, I'm a bargain hunter. It just didn't seem worth it to pay for shipping and everything and only get 6 or 12 balls. And amounts a little higher than 12 started to get expensive. But then once you hit a gross, they come down. (Do you know how many a gross is? It's 144. It's one of those numbers that have a name, like 20 is called a score. You can read all about it here). I put down my $30 and forgot all about it.

Then, this morning, at approximately 8:58 a.m. on this sleep-in-Thursday, there was a sharp rapping at my door. All at once I remembered all those considerations enumerated above, and I bolted out of bed and signed for the lightest package I've ever received. It's mostly air. 144 white ping pong balls. (Hey, that has a good ring to it. How about in German: something like Hundert Vier und Vierzig Weiße Tischtennisbälle. Damn, that might make a good, catchy, 80s protest song like Neun und Neunzig Luftballons).

Now there's a lot you could do with 144 ping pong balls, and it's not all pong-related, let me tell you.
-This guy, for instance, played a merry prank on a co-worker.
-I was thinking about those huge tubs of plastic balls you used to jump in at fairs and carnivals.
-If there were a sudden flash flood in my basement and I couldn't escape, I'm pretty sure I'd survive for up to two hours by breathing the tiny bits of air trapped in each ball.

Well, I guess I'll go play some ping pong.