Do you own a piece of furniture that tells the story of your marriage or the story of movement in your life? Let me tell you about our foosball table. I "won" it ten years ago from a radio station in Biloxi, Mississippi.
At the time I was doing temp work for a local manufacturer. In the engineering office where I spent my days we often listened to the local alternative music station, which featured a daily contest called The Trading Block. Every weekday around noon the DJs placed an item on the trading block and listeners called in to offer a trade. The first caller to offer a fair trade - at the DJ's discretion - was awarded the day's item. The trades continued by placing the new item acquired in the trade on to the trading block the next day.
On this particular day, the radio station was auctioning off a foosball table. I called immediately and offered two dorm-sized refrigerators in trade. They accepted without hesitation and joked that the prizes kept getting better! Soon they'd be placing cars on the trading block! (Which reminds me, have you read the story of the red paper clip?).
The next day Jeromy drove down to the station to pick up our prize, and we became the proud owners of a classic, regulation-sized foosball table. It lived in our spare room for the next six months alongside another newly acquired item - a kegerator*.
Have I mentioned our lifestyle in Mississippi? It wasn't what I was expecting after graduating from college, becoming an "Air Force wife" and entering into the work force myself. You see, Jeromy was in tech school with a squadron full of 18 and 19 year olds. He was the only married Airman and therefore the only one of the bunch with permission to live outside the on-base dormitories. By default, our apartment became the weekend hangout for more than a dozen enlisted men in training. We went through at least one keg per weekend. We cooked a lot of bacon and egg breakfasts. We narrowly escaped all kinds of trouble with the authorities.
Since we were lacking a guest bed and since all our friends were more than happy to pass out on couches, chairs and beer-stained rugs, the spare bedroom was the perfect spot for a foosball table. Jeromy, Kim, Mike, Stacey, Pat and others all learned to play a good game of foosball on this table, and we all improved our skills every weekend.
Within a few months, however, we headed to North Carolina for Jeromy's first permanent duty assignment. When our moving truck arrived, the guys in his new squadron were there to help us unload. To this day, Charlie and Joe will tell you that they knew - as soon as they helped unload the foosball table and the kegerator - that we would all get along just fine.
In North Carolina we had a three bedroom house. We bought a new bedroom set, put our old bed in the second bedroom and turned the third bedroom into an office. Since we had room in the kitchen for a small table, the foosball table was displayed prominently in our dining room. This was years before Joey and Chandler would do the same with their foosball table on Friends.
We played the table hard in North Carolina, getting schooled weekly by Charlie who learned to play from the foosball pros while stationed in Germany. After a few years in North Carolina, however, we acquired a used dining room table from friends and a used Mazda 626* from family. Now, we had no room for the foosball table, and we had a car that badly needed tires. The details are foggy, but somehow, through a series of Jeromy-style trades, we agreed to give Beau the foosball table for a new set of tires.
But how do you get a foosball table to Ohio in a Mazda 626? You strap it to the roof, of course. Jeromy designed a brace and platform that fit snugly into the open sun roof, attached the base to the upside-down foosball table, strapped everything down - and we were on our way. Half way to Ohio, however, in the mountains of West Virginia, we hit a rain storm. The platform began collecting water, and small drops started creeping into the car from the sunroof. For Jeromy, it was Chinese torture. Here he is transversing his way through the narrow, winding mountain roads with zero visibility when he starts getting pinged on the head by rain drops at completely random intervals. We tried unsuccessfully to block the leak with stray towels and other leak-blocking devices, but nothing worked. Finally, Jeromy hit his limit, looked around and said, "Don't we have an umbrella in here?"
Can't you picture it? You see two crazy kids motoring through the mountains in a rusted Mazda. You can't help but notice an upturned table of some sort strapped to the top of their car, so you look in at the driver to get a better view - when you notice the passenger is nonchalantly holding ... an umbrella ... over the driver's head? WTF?!!! I can't tell you how hard we laughed.
Eventually, the foosball table made it to Ohio unharmed, where it lived with Beau for a number of years in Columbus. In the meantime, we moved to Arizona, then to Illinois, started a family along the way - and definitely didn't have room for a foosball table in our new homes.
We'll leave it to Beau to fill in the details of the table's life in Columbus (which I'm sure are just as colorful), but suffice it to say that Beau moved to Texas for a few years and decided not to take the foosball table along on another cross-country journey. Instead, it found a home in the basement of doom, where it has been collecting dust for years.
That is until recently. Last week, I saw a notice in our church newsletter that the youth group was looking for a foosball table. We've been wondering how to properly donate the table for months, so I called right away. I wasn't about to let someone else donate their table before I donated mine. I am on a mission to clean up that basement, after all. The youth leaders accepted the table donation gladly, eagerly. They couldn't believe someone had a foosball table to donate, especially a nice, solid wooden table with all its pieces and parts intact, which mostly just needed cleaned and oiled - and it would be ready to go.
On Thursday Jeromy and I loaded the table into his box truck* and he delivered it to the church. Friday after the high school football game, the church welcomed 30 youth who - from what I'm told - spent most of the night taking turns on the foosball table. They probably enjoyed it more than we ever did in Mississippi or North Carolina. And the best part? Before we know it, Robey and Moe will be in the youth group too, and they'll be challenging their friends to games on that very same foosball table. How's that for a full circle?
*These items all have stories too. Stories of unpaid debts, successful breakdowns, incestial trades and unbelievable coincidences. Remind me someday to tell them as well.
I have always wanted a kegerator.
Posted by: Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah | October 09, 2006 at 04:50 PM
Crap. I hit enter too soon. I also want to hear the story of unbelievable coincidences.
Posted by: Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah | October 09, 2006 at 04:51 PM
A few points of clarification.
It was a Mazda 626. This was the very first car I bought with my own money. I then sold it to Mom and Dad who then gave and or sold it to Sis and Jerm.
I had loaded a .22 rifle to Jeromy while they lived in Columbus. Jeromy’s truck was broke into and the rifle was stolen. Jeromy gave me his Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun to replace the stolen rifle. Sometime later Jeromy began to miss his shotgun so I traded him his shotgun back for the fooseball table.
The table did make the move to Texas and back but didn’t make the second move to Columbus. Wife who likes to have a dinning room table, no basement etc…
Since you donated my fooseball table to the church does this mean I get the shotgun back?
I see this turning into another War of the Multi Colored Truck.
Posted by: Beau | October 09, 2006 at 06:16 PM
That should be loaned no loaded.
Posted by: Beau | October 09, 2006 at 06:17 PM
That should be not - not no.
Blame it on the wife!!! We didn't have room for a foosball table in the apartment.
Posted by: Susan | October 09, 2006 at 06:39 PM
Another family member gets involved in this foosey tale. I just happened to be at this church where the donation was accepted. I'm down on all fours trying to get one of these youth's bubble gum removed from the carpet at the end of a very long hall way. I look up to see Jeromy walking down the hall. I had heard that there was going to be an unloading....errr donating of a foosball table. Lucky for Jeromy family help was at hand. I have no idea how Jeromy got that thing out of the basement and loaded in the box with only Alison's help. We no sooner got the table from hell unloaded and put together, when yet another family member shows up at church to get involded in the caper, Nancy. I'm sure she was worried a slipped disc could easily occur and a trip to the hospital might be required.
Still unanswered questions. What happend to the kegerator? Why would Beau trade for rifles? Why in the heck was the home made foosball carrier leaning up agaisnt the side of the back yard shed for years, before finally becoming bon fire material?
Posted by: Rick/Dad | October 10, 2006 at 02:41 AM
More unanswered questions. Why in the world did we buy the Mazda from Beau? Had to be for the zoom,zoom,zoom. Who takes the tax deduction for donating the foosball table to a church? Will Mom and Dad ever hear about the many narrow escapes with the authorities?
Posted by: Rick/Dad | October 10, 2006 at 03:07 AM
Sarah: We also donated the kegerator. Not to the church, though. To a friend. Actually, to a friend's dad. There was a bidding war for it there for awhile, but we gave it to the household that we thought would get the most use out of it. As for the unbelievable coincidences, many of Jeromy's trades fall within this category. Maybe uncanny is a better word, though. I'll elaborate on some of these soon.
Beau: I should have had you edit this post before publishing it. The Mazda mistake was an especially stupid one. I knew that. I'm going to fix it in the post. The other stuff? Well, my memory must be shot. I really thought the trade involved tires, not guns - but Jeromy seems to recall that you're right about those details as well. As for the foosball table moving to Texas with you and back, that just makes the story even better. Really, it's an incredible, travelling foosball table. Regarding any claims to ownership, however, possession really is 9/10ths here. And Jeromy gave fair warning to everyone with junk stashed in the basement that once we bought the house, it was all ours to do with as we pleased. I know - why don't you move back to town so your kids can be in the same youth group and learn foosball at the church too.
Dad: Joe Fuller has the kegerator. I can't imagine why the carrier wasn't burned immediately. Other than the fact that it was wet. I hadn't even thought about a tax deduction. We'll take it. And the narrow escapes with authorities? It was mostly our friends who did the escaping (and in some cases eluding), not me and Jeromy [she says as she bats her eyes and smiles innocently].
Posted by: Alison | October 10, 2006 at 01:02 PM
oooh! a foosball table. I wish.
I'll settle for a basement with all my daughter's toys hiding there...Foosball will hafta come with her teen years!
Posted by: Janet a.k.a Wonder Mom | October 10, 2006 at 04:50 PM
What a great story -- with a foosball table as the central character!
I predict that somehow, that foosball table is going to wind up back in your family -- perhaps a wedding gift from the church to Robey?!
Posted by: david | October 11, 2006 at 11:55 AM
Oh that would be hilarious if Robey somehow ended up with the foosball table.
Wal, you should start work on a novel in your spare time!
Did I say spare time -- I know you got it hidden somewhere, you're just holding out on us.
I'd buy a carton or two! of your novel and give them away for Christmas.
Posted by: jen | October 22, 2006 at 05:54 PM
So, I checked out your paperclip story and wonder if those hitchhiking guys would be willing to do 50 countries in 50 days and have they seen Hostel yet?
Which reminds me, you're no longer pregnant (are you?) so you're allowed to see the movie now.
Perfect season for it.
Posted by: jen | October 22, 2006 at 06:51 PM