Well, I a total of 2 hours sleep Friday night after coming home from work and finishing my unit (still a work in progress). I went to class from 9 AM to 12 PM, came home at around 2 PM and listened to my messages. My finger was heavy on the play button, but when I heard the message I suddenly was rushed with adrenaline. Amy’s cousin Erica’s fiance Peter invited me to his bachelor party. The party involved paint (but no stripper! HA!) and pain.

I bought my own paintball gun this summer and have fruitlessly tried to find a group of guys to play. Finally I got my chance. I took an hour nap, got up to test the site on my gun down by an old abandoned Mississippi bridge and headed to Peter’s house.

When I arrived we left to pick up some other guys, ate some pizza and headed to an indoor arena. The huge warehouse building had two rooms: one with huge inflated, yellow bubbles and cones and one that was like a large room with walls with windows, random couches and inner tubes, and a ton of this weird saw-dust stuff on the floor (kinda like with what you soak up puke).

We spent most of our time in the latter room broken into teams of four. I got some pretty good hits and liked to think I use more skill in my shooting than the “let’s see how much paint I can shoot out of this gun before I get shot” guys. I was usually one of the last to survive, and sometimes the last, but once it was just me and one other guy left. We were having this great volley, then somebody yelled, “Hey! You guys are on the same team!”

My favorite room was the one with the blow up obstacles. It was like a combination of Running Man and The Matrix. Nearing the end of our paint, our teams got smaller as guys ran out. I had a lot of balls left and ended up sharing some with Peter and a couple other guys. We went 2 on 2 and I got hit in the crown of my head. It didn’t hurt much, but I still have a little bump from it. In this particular game if you get hit you just have to go to the back of the room and touch the wall. I did so and came back with a vengence. I didn’t even go for cover. I just came out, pointed my gun, shot and marked both of them. It felt pretty cool.

I do have to say that the most fun was afterward at one of Peter’s friend’s house where we showed our wounds and told what was going on in our heads and finding out who shot us. We laughed a lot realizing that everybody really didn’t know what they were doing. But I think that’s what made it fun.

Anyway, as for war wounds, I only have that bump on my head and a little red circle on my stomach (which was from my own team member). Would I do it again? Of course, that’s why I bought the gun. But I probably won’t in the winter as it ended up costing me $36 dollars to rent the space and pay for balls. It would have been cheaper but two guys backed out. Although now I have a couple new contacts for next summer when I’m feeling a little trigger happy. One of the guys had his own gun too and has a big wooded back yard.

Even though I am lacking in sleep and down $36 dollars, I am still glad that I went. I was starting to go a little nutty behind my computer screen and needed a little ventilation. Nothing like getting wacked with several rounds of paintballs to get one’s sense of reality back in check.