Nelson Mandela has been quoted as saying: “Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” Franklin D. Roosevelt stated during his First Inaugural Address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, Yoda said: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” While these progressive minds present us with transformative quotes that relinquish our souls from fear, I have duly concluded that none of them have ever gone paintballing.
This past weekend, my girlfriend informed me (with as much advanced notice as when an alien erupts from one’s chest cavity in the Alien trilogy… “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you about the alien in your chest”) that we would be going paintballing for her girlfriend’s birthday, because this was one of the events on her bucket list. Other endeavors included working in a bakery for one day and horseback riding, a list as bizarre as Hannibal Lecter’s dating profile (I am smart, I like to read, and eat people’s brains). I had been paintballing once when I was younger, and while I remember my friends possessing the determination and fervor of a tiger stalking its prey, I would liken my skills to a pigeon sitting perched up high discharging paintball droppings from my wooden shelter. Feeling this was an opportunity to restore my manhood to maximum strength and show my girlfriend that my talents exceed holding her purse while she goes to the bathroom, I agreed to this undertaking.
But similar to a dog being neutered, all my dreams of heroism and testosterone flaunting were abruptly removed as we pulled up to the paintballing parking lot. What one does not realize about the paintballing world is that it is structured much similar to the Indian caste system. Seated at the top of this hierarchy are the ex-Navy seals and Marine commandos, who miss the adrenaline rush of combat and have enough free time to convert AK-47’s into paintball guns. You can identify them easily with their camouflage jumpsuits, ammunition draped around their necks, and girlfriends who retain the charm (and facial hair) of a lumberjack.
Positioned below the “professionals” are the F.P.A. (Future Paintballers of America). These are not your average youth who inundate shopping malls and Hannah Montana concerts on weekends, but kids who get sent to the office at school for setting things on fire (I once got sent to the office for forgetting my sweater on picture day). If Rambo was artificially inseminated and his offspring were raised by wolves, this would be them. Finally, at the bottom of the totem pole, are your “bucket-listers” or “untouchables” (which is slightly ironic since we will be anything but “untouched” when we enter the playing field). These are yuppies who pull into the parking lot, get out of the car in their Lulu-lemon workout pants and sweatpants with elastic bands around the ankles (I don’t want to get my “nice” sweatpants dirty!...a sad fact that I even have enough sweatpants to place them in categories of “nice” and “not-nice”). These individuals walk around with rented guns in one hand and Starbucks coffee in the other.
Similar to the animal kingdom, I realized that paintballers can smell the fear of their prey (a.k.a. “us”). So while the members of the F.P.A. sat like a pack of hungry hyenas on the picnic tables surveying their meal, I made sure to strut about with my eyes fixated on them like the lion at the zoo that meanders back and forth, never averting his eyes away. It is too bad that while I was putting out the vibe of “death,” my girlfriend and her friends were snapping photos with the rented guns like Paris Hilton posing for the paparazzi, sprinkling in ominous and threatening comments like: “I hope I don’t break out from wearing our masks…do you have any Purell?” Jesus! Do you think these paintballers care about germs! It’s like a suicide bomber saying, “Does this C4 make me look fat?”
As fear began to saturate my mind (either because I knew we were about to experience the “serious bodily harm, paralysis, or death” mentioned on the waiver form or because I saw one of the kids put something in his mouth “Was that a mouth piece or a retainer?”), I tightened my drawstring on my sweats and made my way to the battlefield. Once on the hallowed ground, the referee divided up the teams…while I stood aside holding my girlfriends gun and tightening her mask for her, a sight comparable to a parent situating their infant child once they get off the gondola to go skiing (side note: if I’m not holding my girlfriend’s purse, it is her rented paintball gun).
Now I would love to tell you valiant tales of my conquest on the paintballing field, where I sacked the opposing team’s base single-handedly and pulled wounded teammates by one arm back to safety while discharging my weapon in the other, all I can tell you is that paintballing sucks paintballs. One: for the fact that I left that day with my torso riddled with pink welts, looking more or less like the underside of a female dog or a playing board midway through a game of checkers. And two: there was a moment where I was engaged with one of the enemy in a fire fight and he ended up sneaking up on me and eliminating me from the game. However, my girlfriend managed to gun him down right after shooting me (it is kind of like me trying to twist the lid off a jar and then my girlfriend trying and popping it right off…I totally loosened it for her!). So while Mandela, Roosevelt, and Yoda may all exude loads of knowledge about fear, none of them truly know what it is like to fear forever being indebted to holding their girlfriends purse for rest of eternity.
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