ba-roke

As you might figure by the material found in this account, I’m not particularly outdoorsy, nor am I athletically inclined. When forced to bring up my “sport history” as I’ll call it for now, I often highlight my brief figure skating stint in third grade, and the time my mom forced me to engage in some sort of indoor golf class which was paid for in soup can donations to a local church. Had it been worth more, I doubt the opportunity would have ever existed.  Either that or I just mixed like five childhood memories together and came up with that. I digress.

This past weekend I took part it one of the most antithetical activities to my existence that I could imagine. I was invited to play paintball. And I agreed. Whathafa.

First of all, I’m such an idiot that when thinking of what paintball actually is, my brain referred itself to that time I watched Ten Things I Hate About You and Julia Stiles was playfully throwing balloon sacks of paint at Heath Ledgers chiseled jawline. 

See Below.

So, I was a little surprised when we showed up in the middle of the god damn woods surrounded by very serious looking teenagers in full camouflage suits holding what to me looked like very real guns.

Hm. 

Well. While I mentally checked off all of the things I hated about this,

- can’t wear blazer

- no protection for neck in case of neck wound (isn’t that what lapels are for?)

- it’s hot

- nature

- face masks that enhance the sound of my own heavy breathing (great for both claustrophobia and anxiety)

- lots of tires and sticks fashioned together to make some weird obstacle course

- teenage boys. gross.

- outhouses for bathrooms (I love peeing on top of someone else’s visible poop. It’s great.)

I suddenly also realized the very eminent reality that I would be suffering from blood blisters and intense bruising at the hand of stupid little paint pellets. I don’t know how to shoot things and I can’t run. 

In fact, in high school, I boycotted the mile run by jogging in a circle about five feet wide next to the gym teacher. The previous year I had boycotted it by walking the entire mile, which took about 25 minutes. The year before that, I had somehow convinced my teacher that I had horrible allergies so I could do the mile run from home. My dad still made me run it though. To this day he says he’s never seen someone sob while running a mile. And the award goes to… Anyway. 

I mentally blacked out after that realization and found myself in a weird forest course with my gun, and my sweaty face mask, forced to wear like three blazers (since I didn’t really bring proper paintball attire) to shield myself from the enemy attack. 

So I decided to camp out in a bush by the river. Every now and then I’d scream because I’d hear a squirrel rustle the leaves, forcing me to have to shift my location temporarily to avoid attack. But I’d always end up back in that bush.

Every now and then a teammate would come by and give me some advice like, “move up the side!” or , “get behind that barrier” and I’d be like, “nah” because I’m really busy getting freaked out by bees and shooting my gun in the air so that I can say I did “shoot” during the game. Have you ever played a multi person video game and you get stuck in a corner and you’re just sort of spinning around with your gun in the air while everyone else successfully finds the buried treasure or whatever you’re looking for in those games? Just like that except real. 

I repeated this a few times in a few different settings. Just when I was like, “Ok. Cool. It’s not that intrusive, I just can hang out in a bush and this will be fine. I wish I’d brought my sketchbook”, I was invited with the rest of my crew and EVERYONE AT THE PAINTBALL COURSE to line up on the field and shoot at this one individual who was running “The Gauntlet”. I was not really briefed on what the hell that is, but it’s pretty simple it turns out. 

The birthday boy runs from one end of the course to the other while a line of about forty people shoot him at just barely beyond a point blank range. He’s supposed to run from one end and back but, for obvious reasons didn’t turn around to return back to his original post. That’s okay, I thought. I was shooting the tire anyway. Damn lazy eye.

Over all, it was a pretty wild ride. At the end, everyone else in my group was amped and wanted to play a few more rounds. I backed out,  decided to peel off my three very sweaty blazers, and stand by the picnic tables and play this game called “Pop the Zit” with as many stray paintball pellets I could find. I had a blast.

As I left, I looked back at the banner to the paintball course one last time, and noticed that under the name of the course read a line, “HOME OF THE 24 HOUR GAME”

Who does that?