Are you ready for some foosball!?

Well, to update you all on last weeks football night cliff hanger of a post: We set out with the best of intentions, but like building a gingerbread house on an empty stomach, sometimes intentions are not enough to carry things through.

First, the 7-11 we were going to buy the tickets at ended up being sold out (that's right, slurpies and tickets to major sporting events-it's a potent combination. I can see it now "Hey folks, hurry on in and get 2 discounted passes to the next democratic national convention with every Big Gulp") and so we tried to get them at the door, but they ended up being too expensive. So, we thought optimistically "Well, let's get some dinner and then we'll come back to the stadium and try to hit up the scalpers."

Well, after a meal of fancy hamburgers at a local upscale pub (you know the type of place: dim lights, fancy sauces for things-like organic garlic Mayo for the burgers, vaguely European techno music... This place also had the oddest collection of melted wax sculptures. It was sort of goth. In any case it was hearty and slightly pretentious all at once) we headed back to BC Place again. In the end, however, the moderately priced scalping we hoped to take advantage of didn't really pan out as we'd hoped--seriously who would have guessed scalpers would be so unreliable?. So, instead the four of us headed out to find other adventures in the big city.

To introduce my traveling companions, first there was Mike: my new brother-in-law and a great guy, Robin: a quality man with a blunt sense of humor and an intensely charming German accent and Robin's pal Tommi: another quality man with a slightly less blunt sense of humor and an equally charming Finnish accent. So, there we were, four abreast and looking for adventure.

After traveling down a few fruitless rabbit trails trying to find a movie to watch, we ended up going to this old-fashioned bowling alley. We didn't partake in the bowling but did engage in other quasi-manly non-active "sports" such as foosball (We played Europe vs. North America), a few atrocious rounds of pool (I remember being good at pool at one time, but I think that was when I was like 11 or something) and finally that hockey game encased in a plexi-glass dome where you slide your men around with the twisty handles. I don't know the exact name. We'll just call it "Table Hockey" for the purposes of this recollection.

It ended up being a great time; although, while we were in the middle of our foosball tournament something weird happened.

We were right in the middle of an intense set of volleys and this guy sort of sidles up and stands about a half a foot away from the end of the table. This was sort of off-putting and caused me to be a bit self conscious about my shot selection (which was weird, I mean really, did I think he might be a foosball scout or something?). Then this guys slides a set of quarters onto the edge of the table. Oh, okay, fine he wants to get the next game-understandable. But then he continues to stand there absorbed in our international battle. Finally, we finish the points on our little slider marker thingees, but we ended up having a few extra balls to finish off in the little ball dispensing trough. We started to play these. Suddenly he says indignantly, "Hey! I was trying to reserve the next game! I put quarters down!"

We were taken aback, but we tried to calmly explain the extra ball situation. He was extremely put out and glared at us as if we had broken some sacred rule of foosball etiquette. "Usually around here we just play one game and then let the next people have the table." he sneered.

We tried to explain that we were having a tournament and therefore wanted to play multiple games. And, that we hadn't even known he wanted the table until he came up and hovered. This fell on deaf ears. We left the table with the unease this sort of social awkward moment tends to create and went to sit at a table about three feet away from the newly vacated foosball table.

Here's where the weird part comes in! As we're walking away he says, "Hey, where you going?! Do you guys want to play, or what?"

We furrowed our brows at the invitation to come back to the table we had just been shamed into vacating. We had assumed due to his belligerence and apparent need for extreme table fairness that after our exodus he would corral his group of rival foosballers and play the next game. Wrong. Apparently he just wanted to get in on the action.

This was weird because 1) we were already at the maximum amount of players 2) we were obviously in the middle of our own intense foos battle and 3) common sense would dictate that if you wanted to join a game you shouldn't ask the people you want to play with to leave. After our initial confusion we raised our eyebrows and offered a still puzzled and intensely awkward "Um...No thanks" all around.

But the weirdness didn't end there. Oh, no. It continued full force.

There we sat about an arms length away, while he, after a moment of silence proceeded to deposit his quarters into the foosball machine . He then adjusted the swiveling rods to set up the defensive end of spinning foos guys and finally, proceeded to take shots on the unmanned goal. Honestly I felt sort of bad for the guy-in a mild sort of way. We sat awkwardly watching him play by himself for about a minute until finally we all sort of slowly migrated to the pool tables. Weird! It was just one of those funny social/ human things that I can only shake my head at.

So, wherever you are weird foosball guy: I'm sorry, maybe next time.

Posted by Ryan 9/25/05