Lesser-Known Olympic Games

Only a few short hours after entering Athens, Georgia, I was tossing beanbags of corn through the air behind a hipster bar called Little Kings Shuffle Club. It had been at least six years since I had played Cornhole, and I hadn’t expected to play again in Athens, of all places. I don’t think of Georgia as much of a corn state, but then again my favorite clear corn whiskey is named “Georgia Moon”—it’s sold in mason jars. The last time I had played Cornhole was in a bar called Tuba’s in Batesville, Indiana; I think my picture still hangs behind the bar.

My host, Cristal, and I registered our team name, “The Capricious Couchsurfers,” and after losing the first game but winning the second, we were thinking we had a shot at the trophies—a giant Styrofoam ear of corn spray-painted gold, and two smaller ears of corn, one painted silver, the other bronze. We had our asses handed to us the third game. The team we played, “The Christ-punchers,” shut us down in a matter of minutes. That was pretty much the end of our evening.