No ‘friendly’ rivalry among these mates

DUE TO the untimely demise of our preferred watering hole which fell victim to fire late last year, our mob hasn’t seen a lot of each other over the ensuing 10 or so months.

While most who know us would reckon such a separation to be a good thing, we opted for a reunion of sorts this week and five of us met at an inner-city Toowoomba inn for a catch up, which I should have known wouldn’t be a good thing.

As I’ve written before, spending time with this mob is exhausting.

Every member of our group is ever alert to any opportunity to have a go at, prank or pull the leg of any other member of the group, or the group as a whole, so one has to be on one’s guard at all times.

And, we had 10 months worth of puns, pranks and punishment to unleash on each other.

After a few hours with this lot, I for one could do with another 10-month break.

The other problem is that we’re all competitive and hate losing at anything to any other member of the group, be it pool, darts or simply getting out of a shout.

However, one particular member of the group, who, for the sake of this column we will simply refer to as “Mick”, takes it just that more seriously than the rest of us.

Mick hates losing at any time, but he really hates losing to any of us.

He will challenge anyone of us to darts, floor quoits, pool, snooker, table tennis... even those stupid pinball type games in which you shoot fake bullets at video moose.

The trouble is, Mick can’t play any of the games himself and is left a beaten man on most occasions, which is amusing in itself but tiring all the same.

The pub at which we caught up on Wednesday had a table tennis table.

I was the last to arrive, Mick had already been dispensed with by all other group members.

I approached to hear: “Game of table tennis?” “No, Mick!”

“Why not?” he asked with a tone of disappointment. “Because you’re useless.” “I’m getting better, I almost beat Padgy.”

Padgy is 56, about 30kg overweight and he’s done the ACL in his right knee, for which he is undergoing regular acupuncture treatment.

What’s more, Padgy wasn’t even at the gathering this week.

Mick, in order to find a moment where he had almost tasted victory, had resorted to a game the pair had played months ago.

Really, I would have thought, now that we’re all in our 50s, a catch up would more likely take the form of a few drinks with dinner at a quiet pub, the night only interrupted with the watching of the news on the pub TV (well, we’re all getting on).

But no, not this lot.

We may as well meet up at one of those games arcades with the teenagers.

And I very much doubt Mick would have a win there either.

Mick hates losing at any time, but he really hates losing to any of us.