During the first week of my job, I was eating by myself in the lunchroom and one of my colleagues took it upon herself to introduce me to everyone who was in the lunchroom whom I hadn't yet had the chance to meet.
She then informed me that she and the three people sitting at the table with her were playing bridge, which is the equivalent of golf at my company when it comes to everyone just below the highest executive level (those at the highest levels, like the president, do actually play golf).
All I knew about bridge at the time was that it was a four-player game where everyone sat in a place with the name of a direction - north, south, east, and west - and it was one that seemed popular in the Peach section of The Blade.
But I love playing cards and loved the idea of taking a break in the middle of the workday to play a game with my colleagues, so I asked if I could learn the game. Apparently, one of the avid bridge players holds classes to teach the game, which includes handouts and homework. He hadn't held a class in awhile, so since I was interested, he found one other person to teach and another who needed a refresher.
He then informed me that the class would be for 6 weeks every Thursday. The first class focused on simply learning the basics of the game from the suits to counting the number of points in your hand. Weeks two and three focused on bidding conventions. Week four brought it all together where we actually played a few hands with all the cards face up on the table, and discussed finesses. Week five tested us with cards in our hands, and week six lent itself to scoring and slam bidding.
It's now been several months, and I've played at least once a week - sometimes two or three times a week - and I'm still constantly asking questions during this very fun, yet extremely challenging game. There are piles of conventions to this game - some of which even the most experienced bridge players don't even know about. Luckily, my colleagues are patient with my inexperience and have learned to simply roll their eyes and shake their heads when I declare that I don't like the term "dummy" for the partner of the declarer, and have taken to calling that person the "smarty."
But I absolutely love playing bridge, even though the younger people in my company tease me for being an old lady playing her bridge.
Remember the time I am going to kick ass when I'm old, living in a retirement home, and have 50 years of bridge experience under my belt?
I love it so much, in fact, that one day my colleague Brian and I couldn't find a third and fourth player, so we started playing Rummy, got bored, and then decided to play two-handed bridge (this does not exist). Essentially, we were playing for both ourselves and our "partners". Confusion and hilarity ensued.
I have even taken it upon myself to name the four of us who meet every Wednesday at 11:45 to play the game "London Bridge" - to the absolute dismay of the two guys I play with and the delight of the other girl I play with.
The day I came up with the name, I turned to the elite bridge players (the ones who have been playing for 10 years or more and who have entered, and won, bridge tournaments), who happened to have a game going next to us, and informed them that our bridge club was named London Bridge. I then asked them what their bridge club name was and one guy glanced over at me with slanted eyes and said, without missing a beat, "THE Bridge Club." Owned.
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