i pretty much hate guns. i think my detestation of firearms began in 1993 when i heard that brandon lee killed himself with a stupid prop gun. before that incident, i naively felt that the only justification for learning to use guns was that if i should find myself being held by crooked cops under the service of some drug czar, and i disarmed them of their glock somehow, that i should need to know where the safety is and learn to take them out before they managed to take me out. however, ever since the end of the lee dynasty, i forewent my childhood cops-and-robbers infatuation with guns and weapons and learned that the only thing that could come from guns was misery. so it was with no little misgiving that i agreed to go out to the last imason company event, paintballing at sargeant splatters.

the morning started out nicely enough – my new neighbour, kerri, nicole and shonagh and i went out for a tasty brunch at the local sunset grill… and then on to the main event… paintball! i haven’t been to paintball since… well, pretty close to the time that poor brandon cashed in his chips. i went to this huge outdoors field with wally and mike and got royally lit up by our group and the opposing team, and had not such a good time of it. i was resolved to do better this time.

most of imason turned out for this alpha-male testosterone-off (including most of the women who work there – which was a fantastic surprise). most of the girls had gone out the day before and bought matching winter-camouflage outfits that were wicked cool and made me instantly regret not having done the same!

sgt. splatters offered a huge warehouse of pain complete with gutted automobiles, little shanty shacks, and a nice sandy floor that gave one the continual sense that one was mounting an offensive on some self-contained beachhead, complete with sniping paintballers in second-level vantage points. i don’t think that there was a single round of the six or so that i played in which i wasn’t eliminated within the first five minutes, thus verifying that i was perhaps the worst excuse for a soldier ever to grace the face of the earth, and making me glad to have spent my time in philosophy school, rather than in military college. in the most favourable scenario, where all i had to do was lay low and pick off the invading force, i got picked off by friendly fire by having several precisely fired paint pellets shot between my legs… that was a real treat. thankfully, i don’t bruise at the best of times!

the games were chaotic excuses for carnage. i wore my contact lenses but visibility was still terrible. girlfriend turned on boyfriend, colleague against colleague, peer against student… it was nutso. but everyone had an exhaustingly great time. our team-spirit-mascot, bob was a champion, looking every bit the schwarzeneggerian-hero running about, strafing his seemingly endless supply of paint pellets, and getting the job done. dubravko, our serbian super-soldier with real-world military experience, took about 50 shots in the “starship trooper” scenario, and my boyfriend, jim stole the show by stealing the enemy “cardboard box” and running it all the way back to our home base!! he’s my hero!!

even though i may not have achieved much more over the course of the day than showing off my new sweetie, shonagh, this adventure did reinstall in me the hard-won respect and distaste for combat that i have always had, and gave me a great bonding moment with my peeps at imason. i think that the skydiving event that i am planning for summer will be less violent (and hopefully less painful and consequential, in terms of injury), but probably not any more exhilarating!

- g

ps. as a side note, and in consideration of the incredibly tardiness of all of the three or four adventures for which i am in arrears, i should make a note of what i did last friday. jim asked me friday morning whether i would be up for going out to shmooze after work. i have already conceded one adventure to clubbing in toronto, but friday was too crazy to not comment on.

jim and his buddy mike had plans to go out and only one other imason was slated to go out – a cool cat named brian. so the four of us went out at 6 to shmooze to avail ourselves of ridiculously underpriced alcohol. apparently, the law in ontario states that an establishment cannot change the prices of their drinks from the time that they open to entice drunkards to come in and sit their asses down during the daytime and neglect their jobs/families/loved ones. this is in direct contradiction to my upbringing in alberta where the bars can charge whatever they want and then arbitrarily raise the prices once you’re good and plastered. so i had like three beers in the first hour and it was all downhill from there.

i was originally planning to go for a couple of hours to chat with jim and brian and then go home. i ended up staying until 1am or something, not knowing how the hell i got home, and sending several totally incoherent text messages and voice mails to my girlfriend shonagh. that she is still speaking to me is a mystery for the ages. however, i did learn what people in toronto do at these meat-market clubs, and i learned (once again) that mixing your booze can only result in a completely wasted day-after.