Day 302 Lock and Load

Susie's not really one for celebrating occasions with drinks and debauchery (no matter how much Nicky and I have tried to drill it into her over the last few years). Instead, I meet up with both of them at a bar and order rounds of lemon drops shots as we eat dinner and talk shit. 


Nicky shares her stories about her recent deployment trip and I share stories about other people's dramas while I tell Susie that she really should invite her brother's girlfriend (whom she detests) so I could take a few shots at her when we go paintballing.


...about 11 hours later, I'm stumbling out of bed, pulling on a long-sleeved shirt and old jeans which, in 92 degree weather in South Miami, is just a bad idea no matter how you look at it. BUT Susie wants to celebrate her birthday by shooting at her closest friends so I roll with it because I assume getting shot (even by an exploding paint pellet) is probably going to be excruciating. 


I get lost... horribly, awfully lost on my way to the site, eventually arriving super late and rushing to sign the waiver and grab a mask, vest and gun. There are eight of us ready to jump in and play: Me, Susie, her brother Aiden, their friends Cindy, Berry, Aaron, Peter, and Mr.R, Susie and Aiden's dad. 


We play a crapload of rounds in the next few hours, changing members, teams, sides, and a few brave souls playing one-on-one with each other. After a while, we learn not to stay behind the back forts and how to troubleshoot our guns ("...Your safety's on," Our referee deadpans when Berry complains that her gun isn't firing). By our last games, we break once the ref calls game in and we're firing as we're running up to the center blockades and pulling some duck-and-cover, Call of Duty shit (Mr. R actually belly-crawls his way to victory by shooting at our feet). 


Turns out, I'm not completely shitty when it comes to shooting once I learn to aim. I take out a fair amount of people, including Susie at some point when I get her dead-on in her knee, which swells in a perfectly-round imprint by the time we leave. We get a variety of fun little bruises and bumps as the day wears on: Cindy gets a mouthful of paintballs in 3 separate sessions (one of which her boyfriend manages to land one literally on her ass), Aiden gets a nasty blast to his neck that looks like a parasite just made love to his skin, Susie manages to bruise Berry through her vest, while Mr.R gets shot at a completely unallowed 4 feet distance from a guy who we made the mistake of playing with. Turns out, exploding projectile paint pellets are pretty fucking painful when they're up close and unnecessarily personal. 


As for me, I walk away on two sessions with splattered paint bullets on my actual mask, one occasion with Aaron shooting me out, then shooting me as I'm raising my hand to call myself out (I spend the rest of the day attempting to get revenge for this...and ultimately fail). Susie actually gets me really good once; shooting Berry down as she's running, then spinning and taking me out with a straight shot to my arm that has me spitting expletives for the next minute. Turns out, despite my dark skin, I actually can bruise. 

The worst on me was my elbow, but a few bruises are steadily growing on my knee and shoulder where Aaron and Aiden clipped me a few times. Fun times, people, fun times and a variety of stains (paint, cake, sweat and dirt) make for a great Sunday night.