Foosball Problems

The summer can get long and boring when there’s no school and camp is over and you’re too young for a job, so Randall Nathan has been taking his grandson, Johnny, to McWinkle’s each afternoon for chocolate frappe’s and foosball, since the McWinkle chain, owned and operated by Perry McWinkle, is the only place in Periwinkle County where there are foosball tables. It’s not much of a chain, one restaurant located at each end of Persimmon St, but “any foosball table in a storm,” as the old saying goes.

Randall claims he lets Johnny win, since it’s the only excuse he can muster up for his total failure. He has not won even one game all summer, but neither Johnny nor the denizens of McWinkle’s, who gather around in the afternoons to watch them play, believe it. It’s a hard experience for a man who played professional foosball.

Randall claims it’s the caffeine in the frappe’s that give Johnny that extra boost.

Last night Randall and Claire took Johnny and Betsy to Shanghiatus, the restaurant, for supper, since their parents were at a meeting. When fortune cookie time came, they took turns reading their fortunes. Randall’s said, “You must face your problem and find a solution.”

Johnny immediately said, “Your problem is that you can’t win at foosball.”

Randall is looking for a solution. He’s signed up for a course this fall in the E. Paul Unger Foosball Department at Hope’s Promise U. In the meantime, he’s paying Lucinda, in the kitchen at McWinkle’s, to replace the caffeine in Johnny’s frappe’ with chamomile tea.