A few years ago (more than a few, but less than a decade), my friends and I were really into playing foosball whenever we could. We got so good we accepted random challenges at bars, and boasted about victories. So one Christmas when I saw a slate top foosball table in my aunt’s basement I got really excited. I told her, and my parents how amazing of a table it was. It was bar/restaurant quality at least.

A few months later when my parents called me up to tell me Tina (my aunt) said I could have it I got real excited. Until then we played mostly on crappy cheap tables when not out at bars. The problem existed though that it was still 6 hours away at my aunts. But it gave my parents a good excuse to come visit (it fit in the van with the seats removed). Graciously I told them to bring it out whenever, that I’d love to have, and something about them being the best parents in the world and to give my aunt my ever lasting gratitude.

They showed up a few weeks later and we started to unload it. I can’t remember who it was exactly that was there to help, Mike maybe. It could have been Rollin or Reggie also, but for some reason I think it was Mike. Regardless it was someone I considered stronger than me significantly. We (we being Mike… I’ll just say it was Mike from here on out, my father and myself) pulled it from the van. I swear the thing had to be over 200 pounds easily. Apparently large slabs of slate are not light. When my dad told me that him and my mother shoved it in the van themselves at Tina I was shocked (but it made the fact that they brought it out to Buffalo all that much more amazing).

At the time I lived in a second story apartment. It came with an unfinished attic that Mike was using as a bedroom. That was were we planned to put the foosball table. For some reason getting it up the first set of stairs was pretty easy. Mike and my father took the top and I supported the bottom. The real problem would be the narrow stairway to the attic. It would be hard to fit multiple people up the stairs at one time, and twist the foosball table up the steps and around the corner.

But we were single minded in our efforts. And again I took the bottom, Mike and my father at the top. We got about halfway up the stairs and my father and Mike decided we needed a break. The problem that arose at this point was that I was supporting the majority of the weight on the bottom, and if i set it down on the stairs I would never be able to pick it up again. With no way to set it down, and no way to prop it up on anything, I just set it on my thighs.

The break went from a few minutes to a fifteen minute break. And I stood there the whole time with the weight of the of the foosball on my thighs. Somehow it didn’t hurt, and I was able to pick it right up when we were set to get going again. And we got it up there.

The foosball table rocked. We used it for years, and then when I moved I gave it to Mike. Who still has it in his house in Buffalo. The memories from that foosball table will last forever.

The bruising that appeared instantly on my thighs lasted about a month.