Over that past month and a half, Lydia and I have been soaking up as much Aussie culture as possible, poking around town, attending footy games, eating Kangaroo and Tim Tams, and visiting Koala Sanctuaries. It was high-time to share some of our cutlure with Australia, and what better time than at my birthday party last weekend. Given our limited time and resources, we wanted to focus on one effort that is indubitably and quintessentially American- Apple Pie? Baseball? Obesity? Nay- Beer Pong!
Having spent a considerable amount of my college career partaking in the art of beer pong, and witnessing it's ability to bridge cultural, gender, and age gaps, we knew it was the perfect activity to which we should devote ourselves to share with our friends. Unfortunately, we came to this realization rather late in the game and thus only had a week to tap into our creative inspirations, gather materials, and actually build our dream. After careful planning, analyzing, and brainstorming, we determined the most appropriate way to decorate our masterpiece- in the traditional red and black livery of the fine institution that I attended and the football field where dreams are realized (or in the case of this season so far- crushed). We briefly considered splitting the table in half- having one side of the table in UGA colors and the other in William & Mary. Lydia decided that given our limited time, the added complexity of integrating two different football fields into one, and William & Mary's nearly all-together lacking football program (I was surprised to hear that they had one at all... to which Lydia was quick to cite W&M outstanding academics), that the UGA table alone would suffice.
The weekend of September 3rd was devoted in part to obtaining these materials- the board, paint, tape, and plastic painters' shields. Our immediate challenge was locating the above materials in a public-transportation accessible location. One of the ongoing (although relative minor) challenges we face here in Australia is knowing where to find things that we need... there are no Home Depots, Best Buys, or [affordable] Targets here, so we're often left to our own devices (although aided by modern technology). We recalled seeing a substantial hardware store up in Clifton Hill, having visited some of Lydia's family friends' friends that live there a few weeks ago. We set out on our mission via the tram on Saturday the 4th and sure enough found the hardware store, which had a small selection of lumber and materials, tools, and equipment (roughly 1/20 of what the typical Home Depot stocks). Unfortunately unlike the large hardware retailers back in the States, this hardware store did not offer cutting services. Lacking the necessary power tools to do so ourselves, and determining the impracticality of purchasing our own (Lydia was particularly adept at this, while I devoted most of my cognitive efforts to what all I could accomplish around the house with a mitre saw), we opted to look elsewhere to find an establishment that could cut our beer pong table to official dimensions (as determined by the International Beer Pong Means and Standards Organization that I made up for this post):
| Length | 1800mm |
| Width | 900mm |
| Thickness | 12mm |
Sure enough, around the corner and a block or two over, we found a proper lumber wharehouse (closer to a lumber yard) where we were able to find a particle board (or a "chip board" as it is known in Australia) that met our exact dimensions; no cutting necessary. When picking up the lumber, a very helpful gentleman, whom few would mistake for working in a trade other than lumber, lended us a hand in retrieving the board and attempted to make friendly conversation.
Since Lydia and I have been here in Australia, we haven't had too hard of a time understanding the Australians around us; spare a few colloquialisms, slang, and minor pronunciation differences, we've been able to communicate effectively so far. Furthermore, we have become acquainted with the endearing though slightly derogatory term of "tradies." Tradies, is short for "tradesmen;" think electricians, car mechanics, plumbers, etc. You can drink a "trady coffee," which is the ubiquitious term of coffee that has a disproportionately higher volume of cream and sugar than to coffee, or if your pants fit too liberally in the back, you may be wearing "trady" pants. Nevertheless, Lydia and I hadn't yet really met with a Trady or could confirm any of these stereotypes. Then we walked into an Australian lumber yard... While it was obvious that the gentleman was very friendly (he went out of his way to ensure our needs were met, and was more than willing to lend a hand), communication proved... difficult. We had carefully navigated around any extended converstation and nearly made it out clear of any awkwardness or "faux pas," until the last exchange:
Trady: "Du yah 'avawayas t'geau?"
[Lydia and Matt exchange a bewildered look]
Matt: "um, sorry, what was that?"
Trady: "Du yah 'avawayas t'geau!?"
[awkward silence while fumbling for a response]
Matt: "Oh, no, thank you though"
Trady [half tempo]: "Nuou! Du-yah-'av-awayas t-geau wth'at?"
Matt [piecing together the syllabyls]: "Oh! No, not too far, just down to Victoria Parade. Thanks for your help
[Matt and Lydia leave before another question is asked, exit stage left]
After getting back to the entrance of the lumber yard, we were both surprised to find a more-than-adequate hardware store, spread in deceptively small buildings on either side of the entrance way. Lydia, enthused and enlivened with the promise of getting all of the necessary materials in one place asked the clerk for spray paint, which included the communication issue we experienced in our last exchange, although this time roles reversed:
Lydia: "Doyouhavespraypaint?"
Clerk: "I'm sorry?"
Lydia [More assertively]: "Doyouhavespraypaint?"
Clerk [bewildered]: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you."
[Lydia turns around to Matt with a look of desperation]
Matt: "Do you stock spray paint?"
Clerk: "Yes, right over this way..."
After a thirty minute lesson from the more-than-helpful store clerks, and two summarized explanations of the rules of beer pong to bewildered Australians, we were on our way home, with wood board, red, green, white, and black spray paint, masking tape, and two plastic painters' shields. Not having the luxury of a car or
ute, we decided to walk the journey home; after all, it was a straight shot. Lydia entertained the idea of taking the tram home, but I dismissed it, as we'd have to walk one block West, wait on a tram, have to awkwardly board the tram with the large wood board, then have to get off at the nearest stop to our apartment and walk three additional blocks home. So we set out on foot.
And that was a mistake. Not having walked to the store from our apartment (we took the tram), I had misjudged the distance we had traveled by about half a mile, give or take. The distance, coupled with the aerodynamics of a large flat surface and strong gusts of wind, made the journey less than enjoyable. At first I insisted that I could walk the board home myself, so long as Lydia carry the other supplies. That approach lasted about two blocks; after nearly taking off twice, I conceded that Lydia was right and we should have taken the tram. Admitting defeat, I dejectedly took one side of the board, Lydia the other, and we set out the rest of the way home:
After walking what seemed like hours, enduring some perplexed and musing glances of passing pedestrians and traffic, and only some mild bickering, we happened upon a great discovery: adjacent to the public housing building halfway between the hardware store and and our apartment lay the next best thing to a flatbed truck - an abandoned shopping cart. Leveraging the convenience of our new found transport device, we no longer had to walk our supplies home - we could roll it:
The shopping cart proved an asset, as we could double our pace and both walk forward, although it was still a two-person job. While one of us powered the cart, the other had to ensure the board did not slide off, coupled with continually having to check over our shoulders to ensure an enraged vagrant was not in hot pursuit, it was easier said than done. Nonetheless, we endured and made it the rest of the way home with our supplies, after toppling the configuration twice and drawing a minutia of blood only once. All in all, we walked the 6ft x 3ft board 2.1km home, or 1.3 miles:
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With all of our supplies at home, we now faced the challenge of setting up an adequate space to actually paint the table. Without a garage, basement, or other suitable construction area, we had to fabricate our own. We briefly considered conducting our painting in the common court yard or in our designated parking space, however we decided against it both out of inconvenience and in consideration of apartment building guidelines. Although we doubt any provision exists against the painting of drinking paraphanalia in common spaces, we didn't want to be the precedent for it to be amended.
This left our porch area as the only other suitable alternative, although the area was only slightly larger than the wood board itself, and we had to be extraordinarily careful not to inadvertently and permanently accent the surrounding area in GA colors. Armed with our painters' masking plastic and masking tape, we delicately fabricated our studio, being sure to cover every exposed inch. After finishing, our porch resembled something similar to the plastic "clean room" assembled to extract Elliot et al in E.T., or the "business room" in the popular TV series
Dexter.
We systematically painted each layer of the table, starting with the green base layer, followed by the yard lines (which employed a good deal of measurements, computations, and taping), the external border and endzone letters, the red border, the characteristic "G" and the waterproof sealant. At a drying time of 1 hour, precise measuring and remeasuring, and the cutting of stencils (required for the endzone letters and Georgia "G"), the table took disciplined devotion of pre- and post-work efforts every day of the week. Lydia actually paid for a cab one day during lunch to come home and apply an additional coat of paint. In short, the table was not thrown together in haste:
I would be remiss if I failed to mention my slight "oversight." At the risk of being the butt of many jokes, I cannot withhold information from our readers... When determining the placement of the G emblem, or more specifically the first coat of the white oval background behind the G, I painfully measured and remeasured, to the millimeter, the precise place where the G should be applied vertically on the table. All told, it took me around 25 minutes to be comfortable that the oval was centered and could be painted. After carefully taping down the mask, setting up our makeshift paint shield (derived from a derelict box found in the recycle room at the base of the building) I applied the first coat of white, which applied quite nicely on top of the green- to the point where no additional coats need be applied. After letting the oval dry for an hour, Lydia and I evaluated our strategy for applying the thin red outline, when it struck me, as subtle as a punch to the gut; although I had painstakingly centered the oval vertically on the table, I had failed to consider doing the same horizontally. After all, I just needed to center the 50-yard line within the stencil, and that was that. Enter in Einstein's theory of relativity, or so how it applies to beer pong tables. In my devotion to centering the oval perfectly vertically, I chose not the 50-yard line as my horizontal center, but one of the 40-yard lines. Up close measuring on the table with our posterboard paint masks covering the rest of the table and thus obscuring the other yard lines, I was none the wiser; after all, the 40-yard line looks identical to the 50-yard line.
After some earnest self-discipline and reproach, as well as some choice words not fit for publication, we had no other choice but to paint over the misplaced oval in green and re-paint the segment of the 40-yard line to redo the Georgia G emblem. All told, this pushed back our timeline about 3 hours- mostly as a result of having to wait for paint to dry.
Despite this, we managed to finish the table in time (although sans yard-line marker numbers as we cut our stencils too large) and were able to enjoy the table for the party. And it was a hit- nearly everyone in attendance was able to play a game of beer pong on the table, followed by a untold number of games of flipcup:
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| Erica and Jay defending their cups | The finished table, pre-party |
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| Bradley and Tom mid-game | Post-flipcup Discussion |
The table endured and served its purpose- we were able to share our cultural tradition with our new-found Aussie friends and bring a little bit of home to Australia. The table remains proudly displayed leaning against the wall in the apartment, as an esteemed piece of both art and utility.
