Beer Pong Tables Portable? Cups Runneth Over!

According to the press release, "Bing Bong Inc. has paved the way for the entire beer pong industry" (our italics) with their "beer pong" accouterments.

If you're unfamiliar with beer pong, consider this a public service announcement (or, to put it another way, one of the few instances we're ever 'pro Bono'--har, har, har).

Before shunting your son, and especially your daughter (see pictures below) off to some third-tier state college where, influenced by this game and others excuses to get college-age women drunk, the only Varsity Letter they're likely to achieve is an "F", here are the rules. (At this point we should mention that we don't think we're taking liberties with standard procedure if you substitute the eponymous 'beer' with any other alcoholic beverage or recreational drug of your choice as regional differences are likely to come into play).

Two teams take turns shooting ping-pong balls into a triangle of cups at their opponent's end of the table. When a ball lands in a cup, the contents of the cup are quickly quaffed. Each cup is systematically removed until one team sinks all of the cups on their opponent's side. The game is won by eliminating all the other team's cups and then as a clincher, if projectile vomiting and requisite stomach pumping has yet to set in, the losing team must then consume all the beer remaining in the winning team's cups. Unless you have a storehouse of ping-pong balls on hand for this one, the ball you are using will have presumably been all over the filthy floor where the game is being played, so we hope you're too blasted to give a damn when the time comes to down the losers' share of the beer.

According to Bing Bong Inc., the "largest supplier of regulation [our italics again] portable beer pong tables in the world", the product offers "the convenience of taking this game virtually anywhere," if by "virtually anywhere" they mean, the privacy of your own home -- it's probably illegal to play in a public park or beach as the women in the above publicity shot appear to be doing--then yes, it can be taken virtually anywhere.

While we appreciate this advancement as much as the next guys, having participated in such shenanigans at our book launch for the "The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death", we question how a target demographic can find plastic cups, ping pong balls and a flat surface hard to come by, unless they're serving time (although luckily in lower-security facilities and mental wards table-tennis is widely encouraged as a "no-sharp -points" way to pass the time).

Regardless, consumers can experience Bing Bong's "innovative" gear (apparently, a folding table with their logo slapped on it, with a few cups thrown in), which (again quoting from their press release literature) is getting "tremendously positive feedback."