Revenge of the Gamer

Ever since I’ve been a kid I’ve avoided most sports.  Ten years of little league instilled a hatred of baseball, and the idea of getting tackled ruled out football.  My high school didn’t have a soccer team.  I enjoyed basketball, but was never more than average at it.  That meant the only sport I participated in during high school was track.  As much as I enjoyed it even I admit that running circles isn’t much of a sport.

As I got older I had a chance to play games like Lazer Tag, Q-Zar and Airsoft.  All of them were a blast, but the first two went out of business and the last was difficult to find games for.  By the time I moved down to Los Angeles I’d forgotten about all three.

My first job in Los Angeles was at a mortgage company called U.F.M.C.  This was during the height of the refi boom, and we were doing over a hundred million dollars in loans every month.  In an of itself the dollar amount wasn’t that impressive, but the fact that we were doing it with less than fifteen people definitely was.

So much so that the head of our office decided to throw us a team building event.  We were given a number of choices, but we decided on paintball.  About fifteen of us headed out to a local course and shot each other up with paint for most of the day.  I have rarely had so much fun, and fell in love immediately.

Being a young mortgage exec with a high salary I bought up a ridiculous amount of paintball gear, a very nice gun and every other little accessory I could find.  I was at the field nearly every week, and much to my surprise I found that I was very good at the game.  For all of you geeks out there the skills you build up in first person shooters transfer seamlessly into paintball.  If you’re good at video games chances are you’ll rock on the field. 

Living in Los Angeles I was used to seeing stars all the time.  From Sylvester Stalone to Clive Barker to Will Smith you tripped over them wherever you went.   One of those stars happened to play paintball at the same field I did.

Martin Lawrence rolled up in a black escalade with two friends.  Both were over six feet and looked ready to murder anyone who even approached ‘Mr. Lawrence’, and most of us were content to gawk from a little ways away.

When the day’s games started I ended up on the opposite team as Martin Lawrence, and most of us groaned in anticiption of getting slaughtered.  Martin and his two goons were decked out with some of the nicest equipment I’d ever seen, including top of the line guns.

Imagine our surprise to learn just how badly Martin Lawrence sucked.  He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and our team ended up winning the first two games easily.

In the third game I ended up behind a barricade with a clear shot on Lawrence’s hiding spot.  I waited patiently and when he popped up over it I let loose a torrent of paintballs that splattered the hell out of his mask.  Most hit him square in the mouth, and for those who don’t play let me explain how horrible that is. 

Most people play with their mouth open, and the paint tastes like sour milk.  It’s also nearly impossible to get the taste out of your mouth.  I covered Martin with enough paint to fill his mouth and block his eyesight.  I was elated!  I’d shot Martin Lawrence in the face.

Unfortunately I forgot about the goons.  They turned their high end guns my way and I turned to run like a scared little girl.  Before I could make it more than a few feet pain blossomed all over my back, ass and legs.  I was hit so many times sitting was impossible and sleeping on my back didn’t happen for a week.

The refs called out both goons for shooting me long after I’d surrendered, and they spent the rest of the day glaring at me.  I never got another chance at Martin Lawrence, but when I left at the end of the day I was ok with that.  Shooting him even once still makes me grin.

It took me weeks to heal, but every last bruise was worth it just for the bragging rights!