By Kellen Wang ‘20 and Rohan Kapur ‘20, Humor Editors

Daily Mantra:

“4 score and 7 years ago it was 1971.”  –Abriel Lincoln

Ping pong used to be fun. People laughed, people cried, people sweated, and people bled. The game hosted very friendly competition among people of all grades, helping unite the school under the umbrella of spirit week. Flocks of eager students would swarm around the ping pong table during frees and after school, forcing the skybox cliques to migrate to another part of the building. All of this was great. But sadly, we don’t see much of it anymore.

Why?

For the past half-decade, the ping pong tournament has seen an ultimate middle school domination over the upper school. Not taking anything away from the losers, but it’s honestly quite hard to watch. Really the seal-clubbing of spirit week activities.

But why should ping pong be removed? Isn’t it fun to see someone other than the seniors win at something?

Um, no. At this point, everyone has gotten used to seniors winning. It allows them to smile and laugh one last time. While everyone should have gotten used to the middle school winning ping pong, it still stings. Something about seeing a flood of children with so much spirit and joy makes my empty soul ache a little bit. Don’t want to hear any of that “the middle schoolers are cute” nonsense either. Their strength in numbers and constant flexing is possibly the most overwhelming force this side of the Mississippi has ever seen.

Wouldn’t you agree, Rohan? Yes.

Exactly.

Also, there happens to be a strange phenomenon which only allows these players to actually be good while in their middle school years. Looking back at previous middle school winners Ethan Chee ‘20, and Skywalker Li ‘22, both prodigies ended up playing really poorly as they aged! Well. The game’s rigged I guess.

But all of this brings it back to the real question here: Who honestly thought it was a good idea to let professional ping pong players into the competition? The winner of the 2018 Spirit Week Ping Pong tournament, Jayden Zhou ‘23, is on Team USA, and has articles written about him. They even refer to it as “table tennis”. I gagged.

In the end, there are a wide range of possible alternatives to ping pong, being both fair and fun for all! For example, shot put. Or maybe the “boiling water bucket challenge”. At this point, anything is better than ping pong. Yuck!

Any other reasons?

Dunno. Cultural appropriation? Maybe?