That's why it's called Billiards, not Basketball

I remember the first epiphany my wife ever had regarding my possibility as a mate.  We had only been together a week or so, had our first kiss and taken many a moonlight walk along the riverbanks of our first home town of Fredericton New Brunswick.  However until that point, we had not yet played pool.

I can remember walking down to the local upper middle class billiards chain-style lounge with that sinking feeling that a poor man was about to be humiliated.  Not at pool.  I've played it and I've played well.  I was literally poor.  I could not afford drinks not only for her but myself.  I couldn't afford the table rental.  I had just spent 2 months of my life on the road as a spiritual transient at the time that we met, which is what, she says, had drawn her across the smoky bar room to my lonely booth to begin with.  But every man knows that is only a start.  My eccentricity could only be used for first impressions and confusion (much as women are confused by gay men. Men that don't want women?) it was an ace up my sleeve, but I was still short a decent hand.  Getting private with a woman requires a little more substance (read: money) or potential (read: looks/education).

So she bought the first round of drinks, bye bye brownie points.  She also paid for the table... I wasn't really collecting those was I? And she proceeded to show me her ineptitude at striking the cue. Not a fake, she was honestly very bad at the game.  No problem, here's my chance to make her feel good, let her win.  But no.  Having grown up with 2 very competitive sisters, losing to a woman, whether for love or even just for sex, just wasn't in my bag of tricks.  I proceeded to call and pound down the balls into the leather pockets, the imagery mocking me, these will be the only pockets I fill. Then it came, like a holy grail to all weak-minded pretty boys... the woman's shit test* or SDST as they are described by Roissy.

She did not complain about her weight or hair or how ugly she was, she was anything but.  No, it was an indirect accusation on her skill at pool.  As her turn was over and I was stalking the last couple of shots, my wife-to-be gracefully and nonchalantly handed one of her balls into a side pocket that it was never meant to sink into. It was a challenge, a lugie on my shoe, a glove across my face.  As a pretty boy with no money, I might get away with pretending I didn't see it though she was looking right at me as it was perpetrated.  If I were rich, regardless of looks, I would probably laugh and continue playing... what's a ball to the man who can buy what he wants? But alas.  I was the poor, hairy lad without a hope in hell of landing a gorgeous university student and spiritual woman who had broken all the rules to be the power-broker she always craved to become.  Also, having been forced to defend myself from my younger, more ambitious and manipulative sisters, I couldn't let her get away with it.  Rules are rules and I'll use them to mop the floor with anyone, or to defend anyone wrongfully beset. And I was such a miser for money, I couldn't just let anyone waste money, least of all on me. This was (at the time) a lot of money well spent and I just couldn't let it go.

I called her on it. I stopped what I was doing, came around the table and put the ball back where it belonged on the table and said with a playful grin "pretty boys and rich kids may let you get away with that, but I came to play pool, not basket ball, an no one cheats at my table. I don't have a problem with you winning, but you'll earn it."  I must have struck a chord, and not just the G string, the look in her eyes was part admiration and a whole lot of famale rage.  NOBODY has ever called her a cheater, she NEVER bought her own drinks or EVER paid to hangout with any guy, least of all some bearded ragamuffin street poet with only the cloths on his back.  She was seething for about 2 minutes, probably churning my audacity over and over in her head, then it was like she saw me in a whole new light.  She never complained again about our finances for 2 years. I moved in a week after the incident and the rest is, as they say, kids & history.

The crap that may have followed our marriage I can only say, is a different story.  I never let her cheat though and she finally bested me, by the rules, a handful of times. I will remember for a long time that I was so proud of her.

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Friar Greg.