When you think about sports events in bars, one thinks of dominoes, cribbage, cards and the like. The setting is all there, the equipments, people know how to play them, can anticipate what the outcome will look like, and so on.
Imagine then an event not created or anticipated, no special equipments, but there are the people, the drinks. Also, what most pubs and bars have on tables, a menu stack. Cards set in an upright position like a small cardboard wall, this one being about 25cms high.
Then further picture the scene of three twitter folk meeting in real life. Now, something has got to happen -but why should it have happened in the way it did? Was it not serendipitous that Laura had a Raspberry Mojito cocktail, sporting a straw stick angled toward the Laura launcher?
Launcher? Yes, I see you are now beginning to suspect. In fact the said cocktail was some 90cms from the menu stack which faced the drink -but still at this moment, Alan and Rosie sitting orthogonally to the field, were chatting, unsuspectingly. Then it happened. Was it an attempt to win back attention from Alan & Rosie? Was Laura trying to bat a fly away? We may never know.
What is of record was the action of her arms windmilling in a frighteningly rapid manner. It was so quick, but I saw her left arm begin its critical move, arching down then striking up, her hand engaging the cocktail straw-stick. Thus it was launched, the hand-strike causing it to spiral, up and away from the Raspberry Mojito's glass, and begin it's flight towards the menu stack.
Rosie and Alan couldn't help but notice the flying stick as it as it traversed their line of sight, thus they became the first spectators to this emerging bar sport. They also experienced a scream, an exclamation, a shout. It was the launcher herself, cracking out a sharp staccato utterance, roughly translated as 'oh shit' -but more explosive. I swear those sound waves intercepted the twirling stick and gave it an extra lift. Thus a new sport, a new technique.
I remember thinking it's not going to clear the top of the menu stack -but it did. Clipping the top-edge of the card, traces of Raspberry Mojito spraying out, it finally toppled over. The event was complete. A new bar sport was born, and the record stands.
Did applause follow? Such a momentous occasion, the birth of a new bar sport -but no. Something more appropriate; pure side-splitting, underwear-wetting, laughter.
So, I thought, this is how 'tweetups' go. Cannot wait for the next one!
