October 26, 2025 by Amy
Pickle jongg
I’ve discovered that, for my generation at least and perhaps for the shoulder generations to GenX, there are two types of women: those who play pickleball and those who play mah jongg. And they have much more in common than you think.
First, they require at least two people to play. There’s no solo pickleballing. There’s no mono mah jongg. Ideally, four equally insane people gather to partake. Which brings me to the second note:
People who pickleball are batshit crazy for it. I’ve noticed (and by “noticed” I mean “been annoyed by”) the pickleball thing for a few years now. Pickleballers are obsessed. It’s all they can talk about. They proselytize pickleball to the point where you want to poke your jugular with the handle of a pickleball paddle just to end the misery of having to listen to it. AGAIN. I gave it the ol’ college try, after multiple people said, “Oh, you don’t have to be athletic to love pickleball! It’s a sport for everyone.” Those people are fucking liars. It is most definitely NOT for everyone, my dude. Maybe you don’t run as much as tennis but yeah, you’ve got to move your ass quite a bit if you want to be decently competitive. Also, many doctors have said that one of the top reasons for ER visits the past few years are due to, wait for it, pickleball injuries.* Maybe this is what happens when non-athletes try to play this game? Anyway, y’all do your thing: go out there in the blazing heat and contort your body in a million directions to hit a wiffle ball with a hard paddle, and if you concentrate on the game hard enough, the soul-crushing “pock pock pock” sound this sport produces won’t drive you to the looney bin. Just anyone within a mile of your court.
Mah jongg? Same energy, but with caftans and cocktails. Which, incidentally, is exactly how I was introduced to it. (Great party, Caitlin!) And exactly why I loved it instantly. People who mah jongg also won’t shut up about it. They gather in gaggles to discuss tile sets and mats. There’s also a lot of discussion about the $15 card you have to buy from the National Mah Jongg League each year because why create a game like gin rummy with a few easy rules that haven’t changed since cavemen carved hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs into stones when you can just keep charging people $60 to play every single year. (Assuming you play with three friends, which, frankly, is the best way to play.) There are no physical risks when you play mah jongg but when you’re learning the game, your brain cramps up on the reg. It’s not for the weak of mind. It’s like someone said, “Let’s make a game with a million different rituals that don’t mean anything but must be done to call yourself a real player and also you need a secret decoder ring from a box of Froot Loops to read the runs you need to assemble to win. But don’t get too attached because they’re all gonna change in a year.” This game also comes with a sound, but it’s the satisfying and comforting clicks of small tiles and shouldn’t bother anyone standing even 10 feet away. Ironically, while mah jongg is played indoors and therefore not causing sweat due to solar heat, it’s often played by those of us in menopause, and we generate our own heat equivalent to a pickleball workout.
So, yeah. With pickleball or mah jongg, we’re sweating.
Both pastimes can cause excessive expenditures in the form of accessories. You’d think that pickleball requires only paddles and balls, but nooooo no, friends. You’re not a real pickleballer unless you also have a hat/visor and a shirt and special shoes and sunglasses and a tote to carry all your pickleball shit around. Don’t forget the sunscreen. Mah jongg? It’s all about the tiles and the mats, but you also need the racks and shufflers and those infernal annual game cards and a tote to carry all your mah jongg shit around. Don’t forget the vodka. In both games, you can go absolutely bananas purchasing things you don’t need to actually play the game but, once you lay eyes on it, you simply must have. How else will people know you play pickleball/mah jongg? How else will they have a visual warning to run when they see you coming, lest they fall prey to your desire to convert everyone you meet to your beloved game?
By the way, you need to learn a whole new language to play these games. Pickleball vocabulary involves the kitchen (WTF), dink, side out (familiar to those of you who already know volleyball), and around the post, among other, more generally accepted terms blatantly stolen from tennis.** Mah jongg’s language is a musical cacophony of cracks, bams, dots, chow, kong, and pung. (Bless you.)
Either way, I’m thrilled that my generation has found not one but two ways to spend their money and fill their time while annoying everyone around them. Isn’t that the point of growing older?
*My preferred sport, competitive indoor reading, offers no such risk. Sure, you might incur a wicked paper cut as you turn a page, but it’s nothing to run to the ER about. Or if it is, you’re definitely doing it wrong.
**Tennis is the most stupid sport in the world when it comes to scoring. Ya’ll can’t just say “It’s 2 to 3!” No, you have to use love, 15, 30, and 40 none of which says the damn score. Who in the hell thought this was a good idea?
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