Air Hockey Games

There are times when I credit air hockey games with the majority of my overall social standing. I wasn’t the most popular kid in high school, but I usually managed to get along. I took part in a lot of different activities, from drama to baseball, and I had some really good friends. When I made it to college things remained about the same; I wasn’t the most popular guy in school, but I had quite a few friends and managed to avoid getting beat up most of the time. Then I turned 21 and was finally able to go to the bars. When I got there, I didn’t have anything to do.

In the small town where my college was located there wasn’t a whole lot to do at the bars. You could dance, which usually involved a bunch of drunk people gyrating together, you could try to yell out a conversation at the bar, you could play pool, you could play darts, or you could try your luck at the air hockey games. My options were limited from the outset. I usually had to be pretty drunk to have any sort of interest in dancing, and by that point there weren’t many people who were interested in dancing with me. I usually liked to have a conversation over a good beer, but most of the bars were so loud this was just about impossible without yelling into someone else’s ear. I really enjoyed playing pool, but since I wasn’t very good at it a night of pool had a tendency to get expensive pretty quickly. I was even worse at darts. I thought it was hopeless, until I found the air hockey games.

I loved air hockey games. I unabashedly loved them. Though skee-ball will always keep a place close to my heart, it was nearly impossible to strike up a good skee-ball game in any bar I’ve ever been to. Air hockey, on the other hand, was plenty popular, and it was never too tough to convince someone else to play. It had the speed of table-tennis without such a high demand for coordination, and it demanded none of the finesse and skill that most games of pool required. I made quite a few friends over air hockey games, both at the bar and anywhere else I could manage to find a table. I hope to have one of my own someday, even if it means that the dining room table in my tiny apartment has to go.