Toy soldiers
Friday was my first experience with paintball, and it was more fun than I had anticipated it to be. I’m sure I looked like an complete and utter doofus in my camouflage kit, but what the heck, you only live once. Still, being a doofus was a step up from the guys who passionately believed themselves to be bad-asses, despite the fact that all they were about to do was traipse around the bushes firing plastic balls that exploded in little spurts of green paint.
I have bruises all over my arms from taking hits, although by my own admission, getting shot did not hurt as much as it was rumored too.
Except of course for that one shot that hit me on the knuckles of my right hand. That one stung like a bitch and awoke in me the lust to kill. Someone on my own team also managed to shoot me in the ass as I was sneaking forward, and I am not too sure it was an accident.
We were split into two teams and we played numerous rounds of Capture the Flag and variations on the theme. More often than not the game ended by one team taking out everyone on the other side. Screw the flag, killing is a helluva lot more fun!
Taking out your opponent only meant hitting them once, but when you’re nervous and don’t want to get shot, you shoot till the guy cries out in agony. This means that you usually take somewhere between 3-10 hits before they’ll stop shooting.
There was a lot of “OW…GAAAAAHD…I’M HIT! OUCH! STOP SHOOTING! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH I MEAN IT, YOU BASTARD! I AM SO GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!!!!” going around. Oh yeah…. serious fun! The stuff corporate take-overs are made of.
The course master advised us that taking the immediate offensive and charging en masse was the best strategy; it took us a while to realize that this was, in fact, a fantastically bad idea designed to make the rounds go faster. ASSHOLE!
While some people tend to find a hiding place while waiting for the enemy to reveal themselves, I discovered that I am more adapt to seeking out the enemy, getting close to them and then shooting the crap out of them. And it has sweet all to do with being macho and brave. My philosophy is that if I am going to get killed, I’ll be damned if I ‘m going to wait around for it to happen.
The guns are difficult to aim — if you’re firing single shots, it’s almost impossible to hit someone at long range. If however you get close enough, you can pretty much take out anyone with a well aimed shot.
It is amazing how differently people approach the game. There are those who are just scared of being shot at and who will go into hiding. Others believe themselves to be invincible. They are the gung-ho players, the terminator wannabees, who will blast away at fellow humans with no regard to their own safety or survival. Hahaha... too much television and movies can seriously impair your hold on reality
A few others are just in it for the fun. No matter how many times they get hit, they’ll be laughing and enjoying themselves. The worst kind however is the sore losers, the highly competitive fuckwits who take serious offense at being hit. These guys are off the bloody Richter scale. I hit one guy early on in the first game and every game we played after that, he made it his mission to seek and take me out. How friggin' crazy is that! He was so angry at me that he missed the objective of the game completely. Don’t think we’ll be holding hands soon.
A weekend later, I am still a little sore from all that crouching and diving and general bustling about. I had a lot of fun, but I do not think I will be rushing out to try my hand at it soon… at least not until after the welt on my shoulder stops smarting.
Real end-of-the-empire stuff, isn’t it?
