Heir Hockey

 

In my never-ending efforts to be my grandkids’ favorite person in the whole wide world, I’ve had some interesting adventures.  Most have been positive experiences while others have been dismal failures.

With the emphasis on dismal…and failures.

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Such was the case with a couple recent experiences I had with air hockey.  You know, the game where two people face off at opposite ends of a table.  The surface of the table is perforated with hundreds of tiny holes out of which a little stream of air is blown.  Each player holds a striker and, instead of a ball, there is a puck.  The air streams form a bed of air that supports the puck, allowing it to glide easily in whichever direction a player hits it, fast if it is hit hard, slower if hit softer.  The objective is to drive the puck into your opponent’s goal, thus scoring a point.

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Annie and I were in the Godfather’s Pizza in Springfield, Missouri, where we met our son, Scotty, his wife, Erin, and their kids, Pfiefer and Payden.

After a delicious meal five-year-old Pfiefer wanted to check out the video game room and spend some of my money.  We wandered through the room as the little doe-eyed, curly-haired beauty checked out one machine after another.

I avoided investing too heavily in the establishment by feeding the machines that were so far outside her skill set that the game would be over before the coin had fallen over in the money box.  I bought her a few toys that were worth somewhat less than the change I invested in the games that anyone can win.  She was overjoyed at having won.  Thus, I was tickled too.

Then she saw the air hockey game.  I thought I could keep the puck moving by trying NOT to score on her end of the board.  Of course, if she returned the puck it would usually be moving slowly when it got back to my end and I should have little trouble guarding my goal.  If I hit it right it would be moving slowly on her end of the board too and she could hit it back to me now and then.

Great plan…in theory.

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In reality I was facing a five-year-old whose hand-eye coordination was far below my own.

Mine, though, stunk.

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We started out with Pfiefer giggling and waving the striker, missing almost every swing she took whereas I…I was having the game of my life.

I may have actually discovered the secret to being great at games and sports.  For years I’ve struggled to play a passable game of, well, anything.  Now, however, I couldn’t keep the puck out of the goal.  No matter how I hit the stupid thing it went in to Pfiefer’s goal.  I would hit the dang thing so softly that it would barely reach the other end of the board and my little sweetheart would swing at it, effectively moving out of the way to let the puck teeter on the edge, then fall in when she tried to grab it.  I slowed down my swing some more.  This time the puck didn’t even make it all the way to her end.  She reached out and smacked the puck, driving it into the goal…HER goal.

Pfief’s lower lip was starting to protrude.

“Uh oh,” I thought.

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I tapped the puck softly back toward her.  It floated gently in her direction and, with determination in her eyes, she reared back to return it.  She absolutely SLAMMED the puck.  I don’t think even I had hit it that hard.  The puck FLEW away from her striker, ricocheted off mine, bounced off my side of the game, then another side.

Then it flew away and dove into her goal.

Game over.

Tears flowed.  More hers than mine, I think…

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More recently, Annie and I were in Rome, Georgia visiting our son Bobby, his wife, Amanda, and their three-year-old son, Richard.  We’d taken them to Fudrucker’s for some delicious burgers.  I ate an elk burger while they settled for more standard fare.  As we ate we caught up on all the amazing things our grandson had accomplished.  We talked about his coloring skills, the cute things he’d said, even the sore little black fingernail he’d recently smashed in the cabinet door.

I’m not sure if Richard ever actually ate anything at Fudrucker’s but pretty soon he was finished eating and ready to play.  Amanda had missed out on her own meal by trying to get her boy to eat, so I volunteered to take him on a stroll around the fairly empty restaurant.

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Right across from our table was a little room I hadn’t paid any attention to until now.  Beeps and buzzes and the sound of motors alerted me to the fact that it was a game room.

Quicker than I could say, “Wait!” he’d darted from my grasp and into the room.  As with Pfiefer, I was able to avoid a major investment in the machines, mainly because Richard wasn’t old enough to understand the basic idea behind the object of the games.   With the racing game I never dropped any money in and he had a ball with it, spinning the steering wheel, for a while.

He jumped down from the racing game and looked up as his feet hit the ground.  There looming before us was an air hockey game.

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Richard didn’t understand the game at all.  I thought surely I could keep the puck moving around the table since he didn’t even comprehend using the striker.  He just let it sit on the table and, by positioning it in front of his goal and hitting the puck hard left or right I could ricochet it from side to side at such an angle that it would bounce off his striker instead of going into his goal.

Usually.

If it did I’d just reposition his striker and return to my end of the board and go again.  Sometimes I would hit the puck wrong and it would end up bouncing into my goal.  No problem, the game couldn’t go on forever.

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Before long we were down to the last puck.  The last puck.  Richard was laughing his little tushy off.

Since it was almost time to go, I had visions of ending with a flourish so I SMACKED the puck.  It flew side to side and moved toward his end of the board.

Holding the striker, Richard was laughing harder than ever…laughing and trying to watch the approaching puck.  He reached out, grabbed the striker, and HIT THE PUCK BACK TO ME!  It was FLYING too!

Shocked, I moved my striker to intercept the puck and hit it.  Faster than he’d hit it, it flew back toward his end of the board.  If it kept going the direction it was it would hit just to the side of his goal.

Richard stood at his end of the board, watching the approaching puck while still gripping the bat…with his left hand.  The right hand gripped the board, with his fingers curled over the edge.  The little, black fingernail shined at me as the flying puck smashed into it.

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The little face that had been contorted in laughter metamorphosed into a twisted portrait of agony.  He screamed.  My son, his wife, and Annie came running to see what had hurt the little man.

It was me.

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Game over.

I may never play another game of air hockey again.

 

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