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No matter how decorated and clean students keep their living spaces, one thing can shout, "We have a nice place" better than anything else - the beer pong table.
Beer pong tables have become a status symbol across campus. Every party has a beer pong table. Even residence halls frequently utilize the easily-removable closet doors. Some are slabs of plywood resting on trash cans, some are unhinged bedroom doors or extra-thick cardboard, but others are painted, signed, decorated with enormous pictures and bordered with flashing lights - all saying something about the people and the house.
Senior Mike Bleinberger joined the world of beer pong artistry when he and three friends started a company called Last Cup Design last June. He says tables, although mainly used for the game, are now used as a form of expression.
"It says a lot, just like anything else now," Bleinberger says. "It says something about who you are. Like fraternities having tables with letters on it - that represents you and you represent that."
Last Cup Design began when friends noticed the expertise involved in the making of the table for their neighboring houses on Cleveland Avenue and asked the foursome, including Bleinberger, for help in making their own. The new business partners have gone on to help approximately 60 other clients.
The company quickly acquired its small business license and Limited Liability Company status, which Bleinberger says is for "if things break." The license hangs on the wall in the foyer of one of the two neighboring houses - a proud display of the guys' part-time jobs.
Their communal table is lined with Astroturf and hangs by blue ropes at the front doors on the porch of their self-proclaimed "one house with two doors." The simple green table can be raised and lowered for weekends and casual weekday games, stowing away perfectly in the ceiling of the front porch when it's not in use.
With a pull of a string and the assistance of a roommate, Bleinberger lowers the green table with triangle cutouts at each end for the perfect cup placement.
"Hey! You guys playing later?" shouts a neighbor as he eyes the table that sways back and forth.
"Yeah, maybe later," replies a roommate with a shrug and a laugh.
Although expression and art are major components to an admirable beer pong table, convenience is another important asset in having a table worth gossip.
Junior Lee Millstone, after realizing his talent in building when he constructed a bar for friends and received beer as payment, started his own one-man business. He designed a table that is connected to the wall - folding out with the pull of a string for game time and folding back together and resting up against the wall and out of the way when it's not needed.
Unlike Last Cup Design, when Education Essentials - the name Millstone gave his work for easy word-of-mouth advertising and a title for his self-made business cards - makes a table, it's left unpainted and completely customizable.
"I don't paint them," he says. "I think that's what people like. People want to paint their own table."
Senior George Jefferson and junior Ashleih Walsh have done just that, and taken the idea of customization to the next level.
Jefferson's table is a replica of the university's basketball court in the Bob Carpenter Sports building - down to the precise wood pleating and hand-painted YouDee emblem.
"It's a pride thing. We take special care of this table as you can see. No dust," Jefferson says, referring to the extra bed sheet used to cover the table when it's not in use.
Jefferson says when they first finished the table after a "ridiculous" amount of time and hard work, they were offered $400 for it. Although they only paid approximately $150 for wood, paint and other materials, he says the amount of hours in labor and emotional attachment couldn't amount to any monetary value.
"During parties I'm always around the table like, 'Get that beer can off of there,' " Jefferson says with a semi-joking, mostly-serious, don't-mess-with-my-table attitude.
Walsh's table is nothing less than what she calls the "extreme" example of beer pong table art. Plexiglas covers the Vegas-themed table containing dice, cards, $100 bills, a roulette wheel centerpiece and the phrases "Hey there Big Spender" and "Are you feeling lucky?" in ironed-on lettering. All of this is surrounded by a string of flashing white lights and held up by stacked green, white and red poker chips.
Walsh says there's no ceiling to creativity with the beer pong table obsession.
"I love it," she says. "I guess it's because in a college apartment, what else can you show off, you know? Especially at a party - a lot of people have other nice things like guys having huge TVs, but at a party you don't really see that stuff. Especially at a party when it's dark in here, you can still see the lights going. I think it's also become like a competition - everybody wants to have the nicest one."
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