Ceasefire, shmeasefire. Diplomats sure have wasted a fuckton of time when a permanent solution to their nations’ ills is down the street at a rec center.
Foosball is the greatest equalizer. No one is naturally good at it, not even professional pig roasters. Even with practice, the rapid twists and dramatic lunges are Herculean feats. It’s soccer designed by pinball wizards high on air hockey fumes.
The thwacked ball hits everything but its intended targets. Doesn’t nine little skewered players with terrible aim tasked with determining a nation’s fate sound amazing?
Decades of arms dealing and psyops are neutralized by a marble on steroids. I’ll be supplying the balls once I figure out what a lathe is. Expired gumballs may have to suffice.
Player selection will be completely random. None of that demeaning line up and face humiliation schoolyard shit. I hope for a dream team of elderly librarians, plucky six-year-olds, and crabby bus drivers.
The foosball table will be constructed by an unaligned nation: Nauru. This spectacular undertaking will bring international fame to the third smallest country and will allow geography nerds to be show-offs at pub trivia.
The match’s location is secret so that neither side attempts a preemptive airstrike. It’s not a bunker in Nauru. It’s also not not a bunker in Nauru.
I’m ref. My stripes will be kevlar. I’ll also be ball boy. My underwear will also be kevlar.
My Rules:
1. There will be no cross-border incursions i.e. reaching over the table to slap your opponents’ hands.
2. No shaking the table! There’s been enough of that already.
3. Once you choose a knob, only you can spin it. Choose wisely, foosballer.
4. Cursing is allowed if all players are at least twelve years old.
5. Three timeouts, more if a player has been maimed in the conflict or has arthritis.
6. The first team to score seven goals, even self-inflicted ones, gets the whole shebang.
7. The losers have to shake the winners’ hands, mutter good game, and pack their bags.
Beyond the obvious Nobel Peace Prize, I require a modicum of recognition for my diplomatic genius: a gold statue in every nation’s capital. Drop my head on a Hemsworth’s bod. You can gild the foosball table too, if the sore losers don’t blow it up.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go solve world hunger with croquet.