As I walked our companion down the block, a man backed his One-Fitty pickup out of the garage, walked back in and snagged a Crud Lite out of the mini fridge. He wheeled out a leather chair and plopped down in his makeshift man cave. He fired up a stogie, flipped on the wall-mounted TV to Fax news, swiveled and cupped his hands.
“Hey Kobra,” he yelled. “When you gonna stop writing that nonsense? It’s all a bunch of cockamamie to me. I saw that picture of your buddies playing ping pong, and it looks damn wimpy to me. Why don’t you do something manly like hunting, or help me rebuild a riding mower engine for a friend. “
That brought out some insecurities in me, as I kept walking. Maybe I should man-up, make something useful for someone. You know I used to play table tennis at the Wood Dale Park District one night a week and met this old school player named Dale. Covid closed down the venue for years and Dale went underground, I mean playing in a bud’s basement. Years went by and finally I got the invite to reunite for some subterranean smackdown.
Dale doesn’t deal in the game of loops and spin, he’s straight ahead, hit ‘em where they ain’t. Pesky pips on one side and some old rubber from a WWII inner tube on the other. But he’s got some major flatline pop in his forehand slam to compliment Charmin-soft drop shots.
I asked Dale, “How’s your game been?”
“Kinda stale. Stagnant over the last four years.”
“Have you tried any new technology?” I asked.
No, I looked at that Paddle Pallet catalog and it’s overwhelming. I have no clue what to get. Those rubbers are expensive, and you can’t change ‘em like your socks if you don’t like ‘em.
“Suddenly I had an AH-HA moment..” I was a Cub Scout, took wood shop in high school, and studied electronics. Over the next few months, I worked diligently. And this is the result.
The Dale O’ Meter (pronounced like Dale-ah-met-her) is a technological wonder designed to make the player mentally and physically ‘one’ with his bat. The instrumentation side, shown above without rubber, monitors each shot and reports the results back to processing and memory chips safely embedded within the handle. Over the course of play, real-time subliminal feedback from the handle into the player’s hand can radiate correctional measures. At the bottom of the handle, a usb port is available to offload the data for analysis. The back side of the paddle contains proprietary information and is purposely not shown.
Where it gets exciting is in the Dockometer (not shown). Not only does it serve as a recharging station for the Dale O’ Meter, but it contains wireless connectivity which can send data directly to Daleometrics Inc. for analysis. For damaged or missing pips, the Dockometer uses 5-D printing and patented Chia-Pip technology to grow and completely restore all pips to their optimal condition.
Since Dale has been using his technological marvel, it is rumored his ‘whiffs’ have declined 15 percent, and his point ending swats have increased by 20 percent.
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