3 Way Ping Pong

3 Way Ping Pong©

By Michael Casey

I have a friend, two actually, on FaceBook who inspire me, we make each other laugh. They are in New York and have American accents I suppose, me, I’m in Birmingham, the English one. Though in Birmingham we pronounce it “Bermingum”, no long drawn out BirmmingggHAAM. Is the saying a common people divided by a language? Or maybe the other way around.

Now E & S, I’m protecting their identities, as their children may disapprove of them talking to strangers. Now E & S live together, they are related, me I’m in Birmingham with a Shanghai wife and two bilingual daughters. E & S speak and write American English, me I read/write English English. However there can be days and I mean whole days when all I hear is Chinese, as my wife screams to her mom in Shanghai. Chinese people are very loud, especially over the Internet.

So if you like E & S are my refuge. Good morning I’ll start with, as I put my bowler hat on and open my umbrella, it’s always raining in England after all. I may send a link from a newspaper over here, and they reply with a link from over there. Ping replied with Pong. Now first E may reply before S counters, it’s like having two pitchers at the Red Socks, so occasionally I have to duck.

Now E and S are poets and writers, E has a big vocabulary, luckily I have a very big dictionary, and best of all the Internet makes everybody a spelling bee, and I can find out the meaning too. Being over here she cannot see the expression on my face when I don’t know the meaning of her big words. While she is typing her next sentence I can run for the dictionary and/or Wikipedia, so I can smoothly and effortlessly seem intelligent, when it’s my turn to return service.

So this goes on, with photos of what S has baked or made for their breakfast. I’m putting the pounds on and that’s just by looking at S’s photos of cakes galore. So S is a poet, writer and baker. Then splat, is it E returning service over the cyber table tennis table? No it’s a photo of pancakes that they are having for breakfast. I’m sure my Internet connection is slowing down due to all the maple syrup in the status updates.

E will say something and I will repost as I move closer to the net, S will make another comment distracting me from my left hand side. Then Taiwan or Arab friends pop up with news, and I’ll comment on Esol English  lists, I’m jumping from here to there, hither to thither, now how do I explain those two words to Esol English students.

I have a new post to share so I post it, after putting it on my own site www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com In nanoseconds and I’m not exaggerating E has read it, she’s an executive editor, she reads fast. S told me once E was at the dentist and somebody dropped a magazine and before it hit the floor E had read it.

So this is how I use the Internet and FB too. FaceBook is a form of Ping Pong, and Ping is an IT word after all. Ping Pong is how FaceBook works, and don’t forget I have a Shanghai wife so I know all about Ping Pong.

Now what about FaceBook itself? Well Facebook is a 3 ring circus, with high wire acts, with juggling, with lion taming, and not forgetting the clowns. And the staff? They are roadies, they set up the tent, allowing me, E and S not to mention the 1,000,000,000 rest of you to play the game.

Now I know a thing or two about roadies, when I was a concierge at CPNEC we had the Arena next door. Roadies stayed at the hotel. All of them wear shorts and they have tattoos on their calves, it’s too hot to wear long trousers. So I can reveal this final piece of information, Mark Zuckerberg has tattoos on his calves. If you don’t believe me just go ask him, does he ever roll up his trouser legs when he’s paddling at the beach?  Ping Pong.