Paintball Wars

It was Christmas Eve and I had not bought my four children one gift. Not one. We only had a foot-high Christmas tree with teeny-tiny ornaments on it. What in the world?! It was one of the years (there were two, mind you) when we lived in an old, rusty camper and built our house, with our own hands. I like to draw all this out, because I (and we) want credit. You don't do crazy things like that and just act like it didn't happen. 

But there I found myself, tired and worn out from extreme efforts. Christmas gifts seemed irrelevant, in view of the 1400 square feet of tile that I still had to lay. I loved my children and couldn't let them miss the holiday, so I left them with Pa in the camper and said I'd be back. In a few minutes, I pulled into a Christmas tree lot and saw the pitiful leavings that the Grinch had left behind. There was one, however, that had a beautiful shape. I asked the guy how much and he said, "Fifty dollars." I offered him five, and he had mercy and strapped it to the roof. I drove to the Kmart and bought a few boxes of lights and simple ornaments. As I searched the toy department, my eyes lit upon the perfect gifts for the boys: paintball guns. I knew they would be over the moon when they opened them. I got a menagerie of fun things for Liz, and then headed home. While I wrapped gifts, the kids and Ken nailed the tree to the floor in our half-finished house. We strung lights and hung the ornaments in record time and it was pronounced the best tree ever. Christmas was epic that year, and everyone crowed over their gifts.

Paintball became an art form with our boys. Their fame grew with friends and family as their fearless forays into battle spawned legends. I was told that they were plumb scary when they played. So one afternoon I thought I'd join them and see what all the fuss was about. We all suited up with headgear and guns and headed out into the woods in front of our house. I had never played anything like this, but I was a good shot so I figured it would be easy to learn. Our teams ran to their hiding places. I found a huge oak tree to hide behind. The tension was high as I peered slowly around to find the enemy. As I felt the splat of a paintball against my poor temple, stars began spinning and I thought I saw Elvis. I am ashamed to say, I handed my gun to Pa and said, "Ya'll have fun. I'm outa here!" And that was my long and storied career as a paintball player. I'm pretty sure my kids could've started a war and held off Genghis Khan with those things.