At approximately 12:16 a.m. last Friday, UW-Madison first year Kyle Montgomery lightly tossed a white, regulation-sized pingpong ball across an eight-foot-long table and into a red cup on the other end without a bounce.
The completion—a first for the freshman—had a trajectory which caused the bill to spin around the rim of the cup before splashing into the water which filled the bottom fourth of the cup.
“I just made that cup!” exclaimed Montgomery, just loud enough to be heard over the blaring of Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen.” “This is my first time doing this. I just threw a pingpong ball directly into a red cup all the way over there!”
The cup receptive of Montgomery’s shot was not alone, but one of several identical red cups arranged in a pyramid formation, all with equal amounts of water inside. Montgomery stumbled upon the table with cups on it within 10 minutes of entering the Mifflin Street house party, but did not throw a single ball into a cup until more than two hours later.
“When I got to the party, I saw a pair of partners on each end of the table chucking pingpong balls into red cups on the opposite end of the table,” Montgomery explained to Cardinal reporters. “About a dozen others were flanking the table shouting at each other, so I decided to join in on the flanking and shouting, hoping to eventually try my hand at throwing the balls into the cups.”
With steadfast diligence and loud, incessant arguing and negotiations, Montgomery did indeed get his turn.
“After begging the host of the party to let me attempt to throw balls into cups just as he was, he finally pointed to my roommate and I and said, ‘Aight, you two play the winners of this game,’” Montgomery said.
Montgomery made two additional throws into cups before being forcibly removed from the table by burly, drunk upperclassmen. Each of the subsequent splashes of a small table tennis ball into a red cup gave Montgomery more and more satisfaction.
“I really, really enjoy throwing pingpong balls into cups,” he said. “I can’t wait until next weekend!”
