Paintball!

Last night, a neighbor brought two paintball guns over. Spud, who'd been all excited about the possibility of playing paintball earlier, suddenly decided that he wanted nothing to do with it once the guns arrived.

"I don't want to play," he announced.

"Why?"

"Because it hurts when you get shot."

"Have you ever been shot with a paintball?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it hurts? Get your shoes on and get out there."

So after he put his shoes on--and five shirts, one over the other, despite the 100-degree temperatures--he trooped outside. I let him have a couple of practice shots at the neighbor's free-range feral cats on my yard, and that delighted him (because it's ok to inflict pain...just not to receive it) and then I told him to go take cover because he and I were going to go at it. I let him have a large rock pile on my property for a fort and gave him the best of the guns--a tank-fed semi-auto that was light-years the superior of my hand-pumped, spring-powered gun--and we began.

Of course I did not realize the disparity of the guns until I shot at him and my rounds could not even reach him. As I moved in closer, however, he opened up on me from the cover of the rock pile, and suddenly paint balls were whipping past me with major velocity and coming in bunches. Before I could even find cover, he scored a hit on me. Yow! That stings! Shorts and a T-shirt...not the best choice here.

He was quick to yell "Sorry!" from his rock fort.

"Sorry, Hell!" I replied. "That was a great shot! Now do it again." (I still have the welt from that one as I write this...but it was a good shot and I'm proud of him.)

I could not advance on him across the open area in front of his rock pile because every time that I tried to get close enough to lob one into his hidey-hole, he'd light me up with than damned gas-powered semi. Twice I tried, and twice he drove me back with additional welts. So I started moving from tree to tree across his front and working to outflank him. I'll give him credit--he understands the concept of supressing fire well enough. He made me stay behind cover and kept me from lining up a well-aimed shot at him by barraging me with rounds every time I exposed myself even slightly. But eventually I was able to get around behind him, at which point he threw down his gun and yelled "Don't shoot! I give up!"

Well I could have let it go at that, but me being the nice uncle that I am, I popped him with one shot anyway just to teach him what happens to people who surrender with rounds left instead of fighting and also to show him that it doesn't hurt as much as he thought it would. And true to form, once he got hit and realized that it stings but not all that bad, then he decided that it was fun after all.

And here's the warrior, posing for the picture that he asked me to take, because he was feeling some pride, especially after seeing the paint spots where he'd nailed me four or five times.

Of course, being the good uncle, I sat him down and explained the concepts of cover vs. concealment and fire and maneuver to him. I'm thinking that next time, he won't be so quick to take up a static position that he can't defend all by himself and just let himself get outflanked instead of re-positioning when he realizes that his position is untenable. Gotta teach him right, because one can never know what the future holds, especially with Obama doing his best to ruin this country and plunge us into revolution or anarchy.