Top 11 Tables
- CJ Tiernan
- Jun 18
- 7 min read
By CJ Tiernan
Consider this: statistically speaking, you will consume more meals whilst seated at a table than any other piece of furniture. Did I just blow your mind or what? A table is a landing pad for both food and active, practical storage. Sometimes it’s for meals, other times it’s for laundry or gaming. Sometimes you put a lamp on it or (back in the day, at least) a landline. Tables are everywhere and (outside of a Buffalo Bills tailgate) often built to stand the test of time. You may as well call them four legs and a dream (uh, never mind. That’s too wordy). Below is my Top 11 List of my Favorite Tables I’ve ever encountered (with some inevitable and immediate curveballs). Enjoy!
1. Periodic Table
In some ways, I have a very logical, left-brained mind. I greatly appreciate order and cleanliness and simplicity. The idea that the chaos of the universe can be pared down to the atomic level and then listed in order by number of protons is extremely satisfying. I must admit, however, I’m kinda done with the whole “we use Latin to name stuff” schtick. We’ve moved on. We graduated to the romance languages. This would be like inventing the calculator and still using the abacus. I simply struggle with the idea that gold and silver are abbreviated as Au and Ag and the one with the ‘G’ is not gold. I mean, at some point someone needed to stand up and call out the injustice. Still, I love the Periodic Table and the majesty of the Noble Gases.
2. Poker Table
Ever since I first watched the movie Rounders, I’ve loved poker. While the stakes in which I’ve partaken have never even tasted what ‘90s Matt Damon was flirtin’ with, I still enjoy the thrill of the fight. When the cards are face down, the possibilities are endless and the hope rings eternal. Once you take a peek, the dream usually dies, but every now and again you get the thrill of pushing the chips to the middle and standing by as the deck serves as judge, jury, and executioner. This is no game, it is war. It is a battle of attrition. It is an opportunity to wear sunglasses indoors, which don’t come often enough (nor do the opportunities Corey Hart sang about).
3. Pool Table
I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa! This guy really loves green felt. Get thee to a JoAnn Fabrics, young man!” Alas, were it only possible. In 2025, JoAnn Fabrics went the way of the penny-farthing. Such is life. Fear not! We still have Michaels and non-Sunday Hobby Lobby to scratch the right-brain itch. Anyway, geometry was always my worst math class (too much art, ironically), but I still do enjoy shooting some pool. Side quest: enjoy the short film Donald in Mathmagic Land if you want to learn billiards from a real-life cartoon character.
4. Coffee Table
What do people use a coffee table for now that periodicals have progressed to extremely infrequents? The TV remote (plus the cable remote, the sound remote, the other remote you don’t know what it does but it’s always just been there and you’d hate to move it and then find out it was essential to the whole operation) or gaming controllers might be on there. Perhaps some coasters for adult beverages (you responsible sailor, you) or a laptop. You ever eat off the coffee table? What a ridiculous question, of course you have! The coffee table is often an ocean of miscellanea, a veritable public junk drawer. I used a coffee table as a TV stand once. Oh coffee! I forgot, you can use it to store your coffee as well.
5. Folding Table / Tray Table
Function over style is a core tenet of my being. I have some things that look dope, don’t get me wrong, but I never choose that at the expense of function. I consider the folding and tray tables to be the anti-high heel shoes of tables (practicality doth reign supreme). You pull them out when you need a surface and then usher them back to the nunnery (or like a basement or closet or something) when the need un-arises. Have you found yourself using a folding table (aka temporary surface) in perpetuity? Such is the inherent trap of the convenient, fleeting table.
6. Picnic Table
Remember my appreciation for function? It strikes again! This is a table that has the chairs built in. Brilliant! You know how long it took for humanity to bridge the gap between table and chairs to table/chairs combo? According to AI (so, you know, probably/maybe true), the table was first invented about 2500 BCE and the picnic table was invented in 1903 (as in, just over 100 years ago). Whoops! Big oversight there. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not the most comfortable option, but the utility is so wonderful. According to the same AI source, the picnic as we know it only became a thing about 300 years before the advent of the picnic table. You go back in time any farther and you adapt from eating outside as a pastime to eating outside to survive.
7. Kitchen/Dining Table
Be honest. When you think of a table, the first one you think of is one of these, right? The table you sit at for 1-5 squares a day, macking on Cheerios and slurping ham bone soup? Yep, me too. It would rank higher if it wasn’t steeped in mundanity. The kitchen table is the daily food consumption hub and the dining room table gathers dust and extemporaneous dishware outside of the cadre of holidays wherein you’re given the green light to fire it up. This table is the baseline. It lacks the pizzaz required to climb higher on the list (except for the one my sister handmade. That table is sweet!).
8. Ping Pong Table
Are you a table tennis guy or a ping pong guy? I, as you can tell, prefer the latter. I enjoy the onomatopoeia-esque nomenclature and the fact that it sounds like nothing else that’s ever existed. I can play but, much like my skills in pool, I don’t have what it takes to go pro or even hustle some suckas and the local juke joint. I have played welts (aka Sting Pong) before, though. You ever dabble in that mad-scientist concoction? You lose a point and you stand facing away from your opponent, shirt off, as they smack the ball into your back as hard as they can. A friend of mine (am I using that term right? Friend?) introduced me to it in High School. I quite enjoyed it but, as the name(s) suggest: it hurts.
9. Massage Table
This is the first table on the list I’ve not had the pleasure of enjoying. It seems nice, so it makes it onto my list in an aspirational capacity. The tension of one’s muscles is forcibly removed by professionals with manual dexterity and worldly cunningness. Picture each hand as Ethan Hunt, disavowed by his government and embarking on his most dangerous mission yet. Only, instead of Eastern European/Russian bad guys, he’s pulverizing stress before they set off the nuke. I don’t know, I feel like the metaphor is in there somewhere and I just missed it.
10. Table of Contents
The table of contents is like a map. It guides you through the respective tome, providing waypoints and teleports to avoid having to read cover to cover. As all my High School teachers could tell you, if there’s a way I could avoid reading, I’m doing it. In my defense, we rarely read cool stuff and, when we happened upon cool stuff, I did read it (Catch 22, Fahrenheit 451, and basically any other novel with a number in it). But, like, history books and Toni Morrison novels? Nope. I’m out, I’m all the way out. Here’s my two cents on history: if what they were doing back then was so relevant to me today, we’d still be doing it and I could look out the window and see it. If we moved past it as a society, I will happily leave it in my rearview mirror as well.
11. Operating Table
This is a tricky one. On the one hand, they are an important element of life-saving procedures. On the other hand, they’re not exactly a locale you’re itching to be. One does not endeavor to be on the table willfully. You don’t telegram Aunt Edith about Thanksgiving plans around the operating table (well, I mean, how’s Aunt Edith doing?). It’s not a party or group setting is all I’m saying. Nevertheless, it is an essential part of 21st century society and has earned its rightful place on the list (and the odds are very good that, should you end up on the table, your condition is better than that of Cavity Sam).
Final Thoughts
The table can be many things. For a rigid item with straight edges and right angles, it sure can be flexible. There are oh so many different kinds of tables, plus many people will use the exact same table in different ways (in college, we had a plastic patio table in our kitchen), so your list may differ pretty substantially from my own. Awesome! Please let me know in the comments if I missed any of the tables you can’t live without. As always, I’ll leave a few that just missed my list down below. Thanks! Have a great day!
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