On Monday I challenged Ralph to a game of Ping Pong.
Something like this had been coming for a long time.
The man had been asking for it.
Ralph is 77 years old and is a handyman who has lived his entire life in the Queen East area. He’s thin as a rail, has a bow-legged walk and is an incorrigible flirt. He has no time for men, me in particular it seems, but becomes Mister Fucking Charm when he’s around the ladies.
When he see my wife Rachelle, who seems to be a particular favourite, he clutches his chest and staggers about as if having a heart attack. He sings her praises, whispers hammy things in broken french, then romances my dog Heidi—who just fucking love him—and completely ignores me.
I hate his guts.
On Monday I saw him leaning in a doorway that leads into the Jimmy Simpson Community Centre just around the corner from where we live. I approached him and saw that he was flirting with two Asian women– both around 60– who were playing Ping Pong. Ralph was actually dancing, doing the robot of all things, and the women were in hysterics, oh, just falling in love they were, and this completely infuriated me.
I wanted to be the Alpha male.
“That’s one squeaky robot there, Ralph,” I said.
Ralph fake punched me in the face. This made me flinch and drop my bottle of mango juice. The Asian women screamed with laughter.
I then challenged Ralph to Ping Pong.
It turns out that Ralph was better at Ping Pong than I expected and although I was winning, the game was tight. It was hotter than hell in the Community Centre and I did something I very rarely do which was take my shirt off, and shortly after I did so I saw one of the Asian women pointing at me. I’ve had a number of surgeries and have several scars, and this sort of thing embarrasses me, but I was completely focused on defeating Ralph so I ploughed forward when I head the woman yell, “You go, G.I. Joe!”
I turned to her.
“What?”
“ We in Vietnam appreciate you fight for us in war!”
“I didn’t fight in Vietnam, I’m WAY too young to have fought in Vietnam!”
Ralph, the prick, said, “You don’t look young! I think you got the Shell Shock!”
I continued trying to convince the women that I was not a Vietnam vet and the fact that I had scars and was wearing a pair of camouflage shorts was just a coincidence.
“Okay, you no soldier fine. You carry heavy mental weight, I understand, but we thank you.”
While I was having this insanely exasperating conversation, Ralph continued to serve, awarding himself points for each unattended shot until he declared himself the winner. Stepping out of the room he said, “I gotta go now, some of have to work for a living! You tell your wife I say “hi, and that I love her long time!” and then he thrust his hips, the Asian women once again screaming with delight.