Fun Fact

Victorians invented table tennis as an after-dinner entertainment. Really. The net was a standing line of books on a dining table, and they called it “whiff-whaff.” It was a phenomenon, and it was a game for the gentry. Whiff-whaff Wimbledon had to be played in whiff-whaff whites (kidding … maybe). Thankfully, the United States, the engine of democracy that it is, came along to modernize and popularize the game, until every 1950s basement den had a pingpong table for the milkshake-slurping, aw-shucks youth of the day. Harling’s Upstairs (3941-A Main, 816-531-0303) might not serve milkshakes — just $2 domestic drafts and wells — but it does host Missouri’s largest pingpong league every Wednesday from 7 to 11 p.m. It’s open to newcomers, so grab the nearest whiff-whaff paddle and start practicing your serve.