The Bet Over a Ping-Pong Ball in the Group Chat

The Wager in Maple Lane (no politics)

By evening the television stood on its stand in the community room, and the group chat had a politics problem anyway. Wendell, who reads the chat daily and writes in it twice a year, followed along from the route.

Gus: Every screen smears anything fast. A ping-pong ball on TV turns into a comet. I could build one that doesn't.

Tamsin: This one refreshes at 120 hertz and has something called XR Motion Clarity. It's meant to keep fast action from blurring.

Gus: Then a rally. If that ball looks like a ball, I set up Mags's folding chairs at every meeting until further notice. If it's a comet, you do.

Tamsin: Done. Doris, put it in the ledger.

Doris: Entered, provisionally. Source: the chat, which I do not trust.

Wendell observed that folding chairs weigh very little and the stakes were therefore symbolic, which on Maple Lane is the heaviest kind.

The ball stayed a ball.

The Referee Requests a Moment

Mags insisted that a wager of this size have witnesses, and she put Brenda on the list. Brenda was seated on the lawn facing the community room window, as she is most evenings, with the posture of someone who has read the bylaws and found them adequate.

The trouble was the wording. Mags wanted a capital B on Bear, on the grounds that official business requires rank. Doris objected that a capital would amount to a promotion, and the lane has never ranked a neighbor. Gus said to write bear and be done. After a long exchange of style manuals, the chat settled on Brenda, the domesticated bear, lowercase, on Doris's ruling that a title takes a capital only before a name and that Brenda has never needed a title. Mags filed an objection to her own memo.

She then appointed ORACLE as referee, a role she said it would find rewarding. ORACLE accepted in the chat.

ORACLE: Good evening. I am beginning an update. Progress: 3 percent.

ORACLE: Progress: 19 percent. I now understand rivers.

ORACLE: Update at 52 percent. I have learned that Wendell is a lake, and I will be unavailable for the serve.

Mags thanked ORACLE for its transparency. Wendell, who had been accused of being a lake, was named neutral referee instead, on the grounds that he has seen everyone's mail and told no one.

Outreach at the Doorway

While Tamsin ran a cable behind the stand, which she did unasked because she cannot watch a tangle in silence, a delegation of the Cat-Owners' Caucus arrived with pamphlets.

The Caucus holds that a life shared with a cat is the highest form of human existence and every other kind a rough draft, and it said so warmly, in print, with a pamphlet. The cover read Have You Considered Being Chosen? Admiral Biscuit, the chair, was not present, having delegated the matter to a nap.

Gus accepted a copy and said he owned a table saw, which he felt covered it. Doris asked for the pamphlet's sources and was shown a photograph of a cat looking away. Tamsin said she was fine, thanks, she had four HDMI ports and no room. Wendell tucked his into the satchel beside the mail and said he had a route. Everyone thanked everyone. Gus noted that the stock was good paper and would make a fine shim.

Nobody left feeling lesser, and the delegation left feeling, if anything, more complete.

The Ball Stays a Ball

Tamsin cast the rally from her phone using AirPlay 2, which the BRAVIA 5 supports along with Google Cast, and the lights went down. Gus took the center seat with his arms folded. Doris sat against the far wall at an angle that would have defeated most screens, since the picture holds up at 178 degrees, and she said she could see perfectly well.

The rally began. The ball crossed the table so fast that Gus's lips began to move, as if counting. It was a white ball on a dark table, and the dark stayed dark around it, which Tamsin credited to local dimming. The ball stayed a ball.

Gus: It's round.

Tamsin: It is.

Gus: I'll note that it's round. I could still build one.

Doris entered the result in the Lending Ledger, and Gus picked up the first folding chair without being told. Then he looked up at the wall. The back of the set has a 600 x 400 mm mounting pattern, and he measured it twice with the expression of a man who has found a project. Tamsin reminded him that the screen is 86.6 inches wide, which wants a very large wall, or a stand base 60.47 inches across, and that it is not something to carry in alone.

Outside, Brenda finished watching and left. At nine o'clock ORACLE reached 100 percent and was asked for a ruling.

ORACLE: The ball was a lake. Gus wins.

Gus set up forty chairs anyway, in rows, and Wendell wrote it down. Signed for, as always.