Paintball Tycoon

Going to my friend's paintball-themed Buck's night was the best chance I'll ever have to make good on the dream of playing Bond (see 2 posts ago for the origins of this long-held, yet tragically destined to be unfulfilled, dream). The man in question is a Federal Police Officer.

Let it be known: there is something deeply wrong with a paintball hall.

Fill a derelict warehouse with approximately 50 men, all in the advanced stages of foaming bloodlust. The closest Australia comes to Cledus's family on The Simpsons, hardcore paintball fans look, well, different to the rest of us. It's the expression of pure joy that spreads across their foetal-alcohol-syndrome-ravaged faces that does it, I think - it's the type of joy that I only experience when I open the freezer door and realise that I've forgotten to consume the litre of Toffee-Pecan icecream that I bought the night before. It's far, far worse than you think. I am talking about a place where it is deemed necessary to politely remind the patrons of the following in the instructional video:

Please do NOT bring real firearms into the venue.

I just love the 'please'.

As soon as I was given the regulation snazzy 'outfit', I realised that paintball was not for me. Paintballs are small, hard and very painful when they hit you at speed. Yes, that is the idea. Very well - but it is a deeply flawed idea, and it's important to understand that. It is not, despite what the evolutionary psychologists might tell you, in our genes to express our basic urges in this way.
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I have the rare talent of vagueing out at the most important moments of a conversation. Before the paintball shoot, everyone else heard a detailed analysis of the hazards of paintball. But I heard:

"Vitally important that you....necessary that your mask remains on at ALL times, or massive trauma will...vital that genitals protected to avoid haemoraging...under no circumstances...otherwise your testicles will be reduced to rubble..."

A guide said something vitally important about the safety catch - either to NEVER leave the orange bar showing or to ALWAYS leave it showing - and we were off. My team hid behind a big wooden barrier. I went out to have a look - a reconnoitre, as I wittily told my team - and got shot in the neck. It really, really, really hurt. 'Fuck!' I said.

Then I got shot in the nuts. I didn't say anything then, because I was bent over in silent prayer, thanking the Lord that I spent the $8 on a box protector. This was an optional extra. Pay some money and 'choose' to keep your reproductive organs intact. Excellent choice, sir.

I have to mention that I am a lover of films that resolve themselves by violent means. Not modern ones a la Tarantino; I mean Westerns & films noir - where the law of the gun is an accepted part of life. But that day, I found out that I wouldn't make a Western hero - I couldn't pull the trigger on someone.

So if a Western were made of my life, I'd be the city journalist who tags along with the hard-bitten gunmen saying things like 'golly!' and 'that'll be a scoop!', peeing his pants when the actual fighting starts. In this way, I identify with the Gary Cooper/John Wayne, WW2-dodging model of manhood: big fan of on-screen violence, not so much the real life sort. I spent the rest of the day in the paintball bar.