In hindsight, it's clear that many of the benefits to my job were grossly oversold -- where are those groupies I was promised? -- while the disadvantages were glossed over. Nobody warned me that I'd become skeptical, suspicious and prone to see sinister motives in any situation.

Thus was I quick to conclude that Raleigh was trying to hijack Rocky Mount's professional pool tournament.

You may not know that Rocky Mount is home to one of the events on the Women's Professional Billiard Association tour. Frankly, it was a surprise to me when I heard about it a couple of years ago. There are eight WPBA tournaments a year, and all of them take place in casinos -- except for the one in glitz-free Rocky Mount, where there's nary a casino is sight.

In fact, the only time you'll ever see the words "glitz" and "Rocky Mount" used in the same sentence is today, but only to suggest that it's an unnatural pairing.

The WPBA came to Rocky Mount in 2005 because a pool-playing local fellow named Tony Davis decided that a professional billiard tournament would be a really cool thing for his hometown to host. He lobbied the WPBA, found a venue, raised the money and generally conducted himself as a world-class noodge to make the Carolina Women's Billiard Classic a reality. But ambitious things only happen if somebody obsesses over them. So Davis deserves a tip of the hat for his efforts.

Let's now fast-forward the videotape to 2006. Two pool tournaments have been held in Rocky Mount, and planning for the third is under way. But earlier this year, word leaked out that Rocky Mount might lose the tournament. That Raleigh might end up with it. That -- and this was my interpretation -- the bigger, stronger sibling had decided to snatch away a treat from a little brother.

Verily I say, righteous indignation began to swelleth within me. I decided that with my help, the tournament-stealers shall be smited.

Actually, I sort of forgot about it for a while. But when I called Davis last week for an update, I learned that the tournament-stealer was Davis himself. "Nobody approached me [about moving the event]," he says. He'd explored a possible move to Raleigh on his own.

Turns out that the good people of Rocky Mount have to pony up $130,000 to stage the event each year -- of which $50,000 goes to the WPBA as a fee for its participation. Davis, with two years of deficits behind him and facing another tough fundraising slog, essentially issued an ultimatum to his fellow citizens: Put some money on the table, or the tournament finds a new home.

And it wasn't an empty threat. Davis had started nosing around Raleigh for a fall-back location. "I was making secondary plans to move somewhere else if we could," he says.

The money trickled in, a few thousand dollars at a time. Owners of small businesses in Rocky Mount -- which is to say, the people who most benefit when out-of-towners drop in for the tournament -- kicked in some money. The state tourism office awarded $3,000 to help with marketing. A new, better venue was found.

But Davis is weary of the annual struggle to raise money for the event, and Raleigh remains "Plan B" if things don't get better. However it shakes out, we're not tournament-stealers. I feel better about that now.

I'm still mad about that groupie business, though.