Old Guy's RULE!!!, again

Chalk another one up for the old guy.

Well, I get to put another one up in the ole win column. Funny thing, I wasn’t even trying. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even aware I was in a competition until it was over. Really. I’m amazed and just a little bit baffled. But a win’s a win so what the hell, I’ll add it to my growing pile of victories.

So let’s just recap before we go on. For quite a while now I’ve been embroiled in the perpetual battle between the ages. It started when some young wimper snapper (wimper. LOL, I kill me. Do you see what I did there? Still tweaking the kiddies. I delivered two messages with that one. I called the kiddies a bunch of cry-babies AND I serendipitously called them wimps. Now I’ve used a big word that they won’t understand. Sometimes I gotsta splain ‘em cuz the little kiddies don’t get ‘em.) started breaking my crackers about being old. Now, I have to admit that in most cases I’m 20 to 30 (ish) years older than my victims, but that makes the victory that much sweeter. To me, there’s nothing more satisfying than this over weigh, outa shape, arthritic, bad heart, half deaf, failing eyesight, decrepit old man kicking the crap out of some young buck. Wait a minute, what were we talking about? h’mmmmmmm. Oh yeah, memory is failing too. And I’m told I tell stories that go on and on and on yet have no point. Wait, but I digress.

OK, so I’m out the other night. I’m enjoying a few amber colored adult beverages with a cadre of friends. We decided to play a little pocket billiards. There’s a dozen or so of us and we are all standing around taking turns playing and having fun. Now, as guys do, there is a little spirited heckling being bandied about. Let me say this about that, this is definitely a group of guys you DON’T want to give any ammunition to. Harassment is a way of life. Everybody is getting it and everybody is giving it. It was actually quite an enjoyable evening.

Let me skip ahead a little. So I’m, playing 8-ball against this other guy. I’m winning about as many as I’m losing. The teams keep shifting so I’m not really keeping score. We get to the point where it’s me and the “victim” at the table. You have to remember there are about a dozen people watching. He scratches. I grabbed the cue ball out of the pocket and lined it up for my shot. I lined it up with the easiest shot I could find, which happened to be behind the line. He comes running over and tries to stop me, but I sink the ball anyway. A nice hard crisp shot with a lot of back spin. The object ball slams into the pocket and the cue ball comes rolling back to me. This guy is incredulous. He’s yelling “YOU CAN’T DO THAT. THAT WAS BEHIND THE LINE!!!” I just looked at him and responded “Yes I can, ball in hand.” This guy flies off into some kind of babbling rant about bar rules verses tournament rules. I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about. All I know is, I’m shooting pool and he’s yelling. He’s yelling about changing rules in the middle of the game and comes running over to stop me. He’s still babbling about tournament rules when I stood up and said “No, you misunderstand, we’re playing Kelly Rules. I’m Kelly, so I make the rules”, and took my next shot. Now, I thought he was in on the joke, but apparently he was mad. In my list of maladies, did I mention that sometimes I fail to notice the obvious?

So a little while later he and I are talking and I don’t remember how we got to it but the subject of his age came up. I was about to make a comment about him being only slightly older than my son when he asked me how old he looked. So as I leaned in to take my next shot I muttered “19, I would have said about 19.” You have to remember, we’re out in an adult establishment so I know he’s not 19. It’s an automatic reflex to lower the age estimate when asked. It’s like when a woman asks how old she looks. You always take about ten years off the age you REALLY think she is. Anyway he launches into a rambling response about how he gets that a lot and that everyone thinks he’s younger than he is yada yada yada. I asked him how old he was. His response was “31, I’m 31 years old (23 years younger than me, anything over 20 and you are still a little kiddie) everyone thinks I’m young, Do you really think I look 19?” I kinda stood up, looked him in the face, squished up my face a little bit, shook my head and said “ah, no, not really.” His expression changed to one of surprise. His response was “Really? You don’t think I look younger than 31, everyone says I look younger”. I just stood there making one of those “I just burped and it tasted bad” faces shaking my head saying “no, not really.” His expression changed from surprise to anger. He’s eyes went all slanty and his jaw clenched. This one I could see, I caught that he didn’t like that I told him I was lying when I said he looked 19.

I leaned back over the table and took my shot. As luck would have it, I scratched. His expression changed again. It was like it was Christmas and he had just unwrapped a new XBOX. He’s now smiling and hopping up and down. He pulls the cue ball out of the pocket, shoves it in may face and starts “Ball in hand, I have ball in hand, you’re playing tournament rules, I have ball in hand.” He lines up a shot into the side pocket all the while saying “You did it now I can. We’re playing tournament rules I have ball in hand.” As he lines up his shot I start in. I go “WHOA, you can’t do that. You have to line YOUR shot up behind the line. You have to take your shot from way down there”, and point to the far end of the table. “You have to shoot at the balls down there” and point at the other end of the table. He starts in saying that yes he can, he can shoot any ball he wants, and I did it so he can do it we’re playing tournament rules. I stopped him and started saying “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa hold on there big fella. Who told you we were playing tournament rules?” Now he’s getting excited. He’s like “You did. You said we were playing tournament rules back when you took your scratch shot.” I just looked at him and responded “Oh no I didn’t. I distinctly told you we were playing Kelly rules. I told you I’m Kelly so I make the rules. Now move the cue ball behind the line and take your shot.”

I think a reasonable person would have caught on that they were having their crackers busted. I think they would have realized this about two hours earlier when everyone started busting everyone else’s crackers. It was kind of the way the night was going. Not this guy. This guy ended up throwing his pool cue. He bounced it off the table and it went flying. It crashed into a table of eight guys about twelve feet from where we were playing. This guy threw the stick seriously and with malice of intent. Luckily for him one of the guys with us quickly dashed over and made peace with this table full of guys, otherwise there could have been real trouble.

At first I thought he was fooling. I went over to try and calm him down. I very quickly realized I was going to be the wrong person for that job. This guy was livid. I’m not talking “Oh, you tweaked me a good one” mad. I’m talking on the edge of getting physical mad.

Needless to say, he quit playing. Ipso facto I get to chalk another one up in my win column. I still have that one loss to deal with but the wins are piling up so high I can’t see the top.

Just another example of old age and treachery defeating youth and talent. I wasn’t even trying.

I remember the Empress- The Game

Sorry, the game is gone.

How I beat Mike.

.I’m sorry but I’m busting a gut. I have to tell. I know I gave him till Friday to figure it out and it's only been 1 day, but anticipation is getting the better of me.

I’ve always said the best practical jokes were the simplest. I’m been involved in some elaborate practical jokes over the years. I’ve completely reprogrammed someone's computer. I flipped all the drawers in someone else’s desk. Did you know you can’t just flip the drawers over? You have to pull and flip the tracks first. There was a lot of remodeling associated with the drawer flip. We reprogrammed someone’s phone on them. None of the buttons worked right. (One of the biggest mis-fires was when we swapped all the letters around on someone’s keyboard. It took two people about a half hour. Several days went by and the victim hadn’t said anything. Weren’t we surprised to learn that this person knew how to type and didn’t have to look at the keyboard? He never even noticed that caps had been moved. ) Usually the response was a quick “Ha Ha” followed by a very stern “Now fix it!” To date the best practical joke I’ve ever witnessed was when this guy (wasn’t me) put a little piece of cellophane tape on the ignition key of someone’s car. It was a cold rainy sleety February afternoon. The guy with the tape on his key couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t go into the lock. After standing by his car shivering for 20 minutes trying to figure out why, he just had the car towed. After the car was on the hook, he noticed the tape. He spent another 15 minutes trying to get the tape off the key. Apparently cold shivering fingers aren’t that nimble. Again, I was neither party. What I will say it that this one’s pushing 20 years and damn is it still funny. See, 2 days flipping and re-stuffing desk drawers barely rated a sarcastic “ha ha”. Compared to 2 seconds and a half inch of Scotch Tape 20 years ago that’s still funny. Simple is better.

So what did I do to Mike?

Mike is a better golfer than I. He’s already beaten me this year. Nuff said on that? I’m not beating him fair and square. Just isn’t going to happen.

The plan was to rattle him so much he couldn’t play. As witnessed by the rules, there were all kinds of things I was planning on doing to him. Extra balls, walking, he has to carry his bag and so on. The one’s I was really counting on were: getting rid of his 3 iron, walking, him carrying his bag and not letting him buy water. I would have scheduled the match for a day that was really hot. The rule I slipped in that would have enabled me to do all this was, you could only use what you yourself brought to the course. All the other stuff was meant to be an annoyance and white noise. I figured that if I had him so wrapped up in worrying about extra balls, Mulligans and looking for lost balls he wouldn’t notice the other stuff. I figured the more rules I added, the more hidden the real things became.

I was shocked the other day when I came into the office and he started in on me. Apparently I’m not as slick as I thought. He had figured out almost everything; the balls in the pockets, his 3 iron, almost everything. I was bumming. I couldn’t let on but I was starting to panic. Hey, not only was there $200 at stake, but I’d never live it down. I had been on him pretty good about my beating him because I was going to get into his head. If he beat me, well hell I’d pay $1000 not to let that happen.

So, I realized that the only arrows left in my quiver were walking and carrying his bag. I figured that would be enough. I wasn’t happy, but I could verbally torture him on the course as well. I’d figure out how later. But I’m worrying. All of a sudden one of the guys (Grape Ape) looks at me and says “You ought to put in a rule that he has to walk……….” Now I’m freaking out. That’s everything. I’m screwed. Mike doesn’t know yet, but it’s only a matter of time and I’m running out of it. This bet is less than a week old and already the wheels are off the bus. DAMN.

Sooooooooo, just how did I cheat Mike? I went in and changed the rules BEFORE I asked him to agree to them.

To do it after would be cheating, cheating, and I don’t do THAT. I do twisting cheating. To change the rules after he’s agreed would be wrong. But to do it an hour BEFORE he agrees to them well, that’s OK.

I knew Mike read the rules, he was already twisting them. I assumed he wasn’t going to read them again. I assumed he would be just looking for new rules appended to the end of my ever growing rules note. I also figured he’s looking for tricks/gimmicks and even if he does re-read the whole note, it will be a quick scan. Maybe he won’t notice. And even if he does notice he’ll start arguing about my cheating and changing the rules which is OK because I don’t want him to figure out the walking part. I would be willing to have the argument about changing the rules all day because he wouldn’t be looking for other tricks. I figure it’s a no loose scenario because if he agrees to the rules with the edits, he can’t win and if he spots the edit he’ll be distracted from everything else. Eventually he’d go back to analyzing the rest of the rules, but I would have bought some time.

So what did I add? I added

■Mike has to play one handed
■Mike can only wear one shoe
■Mike has to wear a blindfold

So how was I able to make the edit?

Facebook does not allow you to change a comment. Rules added into the comments would be unchangeable. Sure I could delete and re-enter them. However, that would change both their position on the comments list and the date of the comment. That would be too noticeable. However, you can edit the original note. Facebook does not update the posted date if you edit the note. I saw a couple of people read the edited rules, then immediately check the date. When they saw the date hadn’t changed, all just assumed everything was fine. And it wasn’t just Mike. Several people checked the date and time.

So I updated the Note and posted a message about agreeing to the rules. I was surprised Mike agreed so easily. EXCELLENT he hadn’t re-read the rules. He hadn’t seen the updates. I quickly PDF’d the rules and sent them to him so he couldn’t argue about it later. When he finally did read them, he quit. GREAT, he forfeited I win. No money is changing hands. With this level of manipulation taking the money wouldn’t be fair; however, getting him to acknowledge that OLD GUYS RULE is extremely fair. After all I may have cheated, but I did out smart him. I warned him first too.

So what was the clue I left for Mike the other day?

When Mike finally figured it all out he sent me a text message saying he couldn’t play until September 2, 2012. If you recall, there’s a rule that if we don’t play by Sept 1, the bet is nullified. We had a brief debate about the date and his forfeiting. As part of the date argument I told him I hadn’t specified a year. Well Mike my young friend, I had. The original rules said Sept 1, 2012. After you forfeited and I decided to let you in on the deceit, I went in and took the year out. Look at the PDF I sent. Compare that to the date that’s in there now.

See, the simplest are the best. All the elaborate rules with hidden meanings were worthless. The simple editing of the note worked great.


I think I’m done tweaking the kiddies. This one was too close.



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