what do you think ?

[Atlatlien]

i went to napa league sat and when i opened my case my playing cue was missing !!

my 1st thought was one pf my girlfriends sons took it out at the house and played with it and did not put it back. when she called them and they said they did not take it out i went into panic mode. i realized i must have left it here at the pool hall wed night.

this particular cue is a plain sneaky so i surmised if i left it someone may have put it up on one of the wall racks

i check the rack nearest me , nope not there. check the next rack, not there either. not at the 3 rd rack either. head to the 4 th rack and i think i see my stick propped against the counter in front of that rack while i am about 10 foot away.

i walk straight up to it and pick it up and and say yep this is it. a guy who happened to be leaning against the counter about 6 or 7 feet away says this other guy is playing with that stick. i look at him and say who ? about that same moment my stick is jerked out of my hands and i spin around and see a guy glaring at me.

he says i am playing with that stick ! he happened to have a 2 piece in his other hand so i surmised he was using mine to break with as it was leaning against the counter while he was at the table playing with the other cue.

i told him that this particular cue was mine and that i had left it here at the pool hall wed night. he leans his personal cue against the counter and holds my stick in both hands and i am thinking , wtf ?

i say it is not a house cue. he says yea it is. i say look at the shaft, its silky smooth. look at the joint in the middle. he says what joint ?
he twists it and it moves and i say see , its not a house cue.

he just stand there looking at it not saying anything. i pull it out of his hands and he just stands there not saying anything. i wait for an apology for jerking it out of my hands and he still has not said any thing so i just turn around and walk away.

maybe i was in the wrong for just walking up and picking it up but i honestly did not think any one was playing with it as it was just leaning up against the counter. i have seen on occasion people not put cues back up on the wall after playing.

i was just taken aback about how confrontational he was and he never apologized . i have encountered assholes like that in a bar, actually i am surprised if i go in a bar and dont encounter at least one person who acted confrontational like he did. my 1st time expereincing this type of behavior in a pool hall.

As others have said, be happy you got it back. The fact is though that he was being way too Alpha-male about the whole thing. Even if it's the best house cue in the place, he was only breaking with it. As long as it has a tip, I don't care if it is shaped like a banana. Even if I didn't think it was actually yours, I would just shrug and grab another one, who cares? Some people look for any excuse to fight.

If he had been playing with it and was deep in a gambling session or something I could see being overly possessive, but it sounds to me like he just wanted to be a bully about you trying to take "his stick" (even though any cue he would be using is not his but owned by the bar).

I know a guy at this one bar that has one house cue that he likes in particular and tries to hide it behind a curtain. If it's not there, he goes around interrupting people and bothering everyone looking for "his stick". Just go buy your own, dude...

Bottom line, you were totally in the right and he is an a-hole, but a holes will be a-holes. At least you got back your cue and the confrontation didn't escalate to violence. Sounds like it wouldn't have taken a whole lot for it to get to that level, and he's probably got some experience there if he goes around acting like that.

 

[Atlatlien]

this guy is not a league player or even a regular patron at this pool hall. i asked the room owner if he knew the guy and he said no.

i assume he does play a little pool though because he had his own cue and was playing on the 9 footers. it seems to me most new players choose the bar tables when they come in snd more serious players choose the 9 footers but of course i may be wrong.

Bangers love 9 footers in pool halls. They feel like they're playing on "Regulation Tables". :grin: