Playing a sport is a great way to relieve stress and keep those competitive juices flowing. That's why, every weekend, I play beer pong.
Some people play for the glory, and some play for the buzz that comes with defeating an opponent. Others play for a way to meet new people and make friends. I've even heard of people who play for money.
I don't play for any of those reasons, though. I play beer pong because it is simply the cleanest of all the competitive sports. I'm a mysophobe, you see. (That's a germaphobe, for all of you laymen.)
Be honest; in what other sport is the ball washed off regularly, after every play of the game?
A basketball is touched by 10 different individuals in a short span of time, not including the referees and the players on the bench who will come into the game and also touch the ball. To make things worse, these individuals proceed to repeatedly bounce the ball off of the ground, for Pete's sake. And does the game ever stop so that this gross ball can get washed off? No. Never.
In football, it's even worse. They often play the game outside, and sometimes they even play in the mud. The ball is thrown, caught, kicked, spiked, and fumbled, and not once does the ball get cleaned. Disgusting.
And don't even get me started about baseball. When pitchers want to cheat, they've been known to spit on the ball before they throw it. Again, never does anyone think to wash off the slimy thing.
In beer pong, meanwhile, there is a conveniently located cup of cold water – solely intended for cleaning off the ping-pong ball in between turns – right on the table.
That means that when the ball rolls underneath the couch, rolling through dust, dirt, potato chips, and whatever else might be under there, it is cleaned off in the "water cup" before anyone would even think to resume the game. Likewise, when the ball travels along the basement floor of a crowded college party – full of students that had walked there through snow, mud, and puddles – the water cup is always there to save us from getting sick.
Think of where we'd be if not for the water cup, especially with the same cups being used over and over again for the actual game. Some say there are over 5,000 living organisms in the human mouth. Thankfully, they could never survive the quick bath through a cold cup of water. Right?
See the water in the cup get browner and browner as the night goes on? All of that gross stuff used to be on the ball. And you were going to drink the beer that the ball had just splashed into. Good thing we have the water cup.
Be safe this weekend, fellow students.
The preceding article is a satire piece.
E-mail: luke.hammill@ubspectrum.com
