When my 9-year-old son announced one day last week that he was learning to stack cups at school, I thought he was training to be a busboy.
“Good,” I said. “Unload the dishwasher.”
I have since learned that stacking plastic cups is a big elementary-school hobby, something the kids do at recess.
Who knew?
Cup stacking has been on television shows such as “Phineas & Ferb” and “Zeke and Luther,” which sound like episodes of Masterpiece Theatre but are not.
For some kids, “speed stacking” is an obsession. Go to YouTube, search for “speed stacking” and watch. You’ll see kids building pyramids with plastic cups so fast it will scramble your pixels.
The world’s record for stacking and collapsing three, three-cup pyramids is 1.72 seconds. Coincidentally, it also took my jaw 1.72 seconds to hit the floor when I discovered the neighborhood toy store charged $18.99 for 12 plastic “speed stacking” cups that are full of holes and look as if they were salvaged from the ruins of Happy Meals.
Online, I learned that cup stacking was apparently invented in California (where else?) about 20 years ago by a Boys Club worker. A savvy physical education teacher later formalized rules for the “sport” and started putting out special “speed-stacking” gear.
My wife, the educator, informs me cup-stacking gives the brain a good left/right workout and is appropriate as an indoor school activity.
My son would have no interest in this primitive pastime except that it involves competition. He has inherited a gene from his mother — a champion trap shooter, runner and former college rower — that drives him to compete.
He once nearly passed out after doing about 1,000 jump-rope revolutions the day before a contest at school. In his bedroom, he has two shelves full of trophies for baseball, basketball, soccer and cross-country.
He informed me recently — and somewhat dismissively — that he now has more sports trophies and medals than I have writing awards.
“Well, lah-dee-dah, I’ve got more in boxes,” I said, suddenly reduced to trash-talking with a third grader.
Anyway, every night this week the 9-year-old has commandeered the kitchen table after supper to practice his cup-stacking. He is keeping a log of his daily best times.
One night, he placed a bag of his favorite hard candy behind the speed-stacking cups as he repeatedly raced the clock in a complex stacking game called “the cycle.”
“What’s with the candy?” I said.
“It’s there to remind me that I’m not eating another piece of candy until I break 20 seconds,” he said.
Moments later, I heard a yelp.
“Seventeen point seven,” the boy squealed as he ran a victory lap around the house, pumping his fists in the air. “Yes, 17.7, 17.7, 17.7!”
I don’t know where life will take this child. But I do know that he, and many of his elementary school buddies, have an elevated will to compete.
And that’s the true beauty of America, y’all, any way you stack it.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/tfpcolumnist. plastic “speed stacking” cups that are full of holes and look as if they were salvaged from the ruins of Happy Meals.
Online, I learned that cup stacking was apparently invented in California (where else?) about 20 years ago by a Boys Club worker. A savvy physical education teacher later formalized rules for the “sport” and started putting out special “speed-stacking” gear.
My wife, the educator, informs me cup-stacking gives the brain a good left/right workout and is appropriate as an indoor school activity.
My son would have no interest in this primitive pastime except that it involves competition. He has inherited a gene from his mother — a champion trap shooter, runner and former college rower — that drives him to compete.
He once nearly passed out after doing about 1,000 jump-rope revolutions the day before a contest at school. In his bedroom, he has two shelves full of trophies for baseball, basketball, soccer and cross-country.
He informed me recently — and somewhat dismissively — that he now has more sports trophies and medals than I have writing awards.
“Well, lah-dee-dah, I’ve got more in boxes,” I said, suddenly reduced to trash-talking with a third grader.
Anyway, every night this week the 9-year-old has commandeered the kitchen table after supper to practice his cup-stacking. He is keeping a log of his daily best times.
One night, he placed a bag of his favorite hard candy behind the speed-stacking cups as he repeatedly raced the clock in a complex stacking game called “the cycle.”
“What’s with the candy?” I said.
“It’s there to remind me that I’m not eating another piece of candy until I break 20 seconds,” he said.
Moments later, I heard a yelp.
“Seventeen point seven,” the boy squealed as he ran a victory lap around the house, pumping his fists in the air. “Yes, 17.7, 17.7, 17.7!”
I don’t know where life will take this child. But I do know that he, and many of his elementary school buddies, have an elevated will to compete.
And that’s the true beauty of America, y’all, any way you stack it.