This:
(That's a LaZer Tag gun. You shoot someone wearing a "starsensor" and it marks the hit)
Plus this:
(those are roller skates for those of you under the age of 18)
Defined one of my summer vacations when I was a kid.
I can't remember who in our neighborhood came up with the idea, but whoever did was a genius. Rollerskating+laser tag. Our group had two broken bones, several sprains, at least a hundred bruises, four or five bloodied noses, one black eye, one broken tooth, countless broken Starsensors, and one pair of absolutely pulverized glasses before we were done.
We had several variations of the game. We played "mob" which involved groups on either side of a cul-de-sac, and we charged each other and once you got hit enough times, you were out, and the team with the last man standing wins. We had free-for-alls where it was every man for himself. We did what we called "Suicide Lane" where we all started at the top of a really steep street, almost a quarter mile long, and rocketed down. You had to turn around in order to shoot people, but you also had to look out for cars coming up the street.
But the absolutely best--and most dangerous--variation of the game was a version we called Orcs versus Goblins. Of all the injuries I listed above, 3/4's of them happened in a period of about forty-five seconds during the first and only time we played the game.
Here was the thing. Lots of kids in the neighborhood really wanted to play, but not all of them had Lazer tag equipment. A lot of them didn't have roller skates either.
But all of them had bikes.
Okay, imagine Suicide Lane. Now imagine a kid (a goblin) with roller skates wearing the star sensor vest backwards, so it's on his back, facing back up the street. Now imagine a bunch of kids on bikes behind them with the laser guns. (The orcs.)
Very similar road, but ours had houses and sidewalks on the sides. And it was longer.
I was on skates that day, a goblin. There were about fifteen of us, and another fifteen on bikes. The plan was to go on my bike after the first round, and I would let another kid use the skates.
We were given a ten second head start. The goal was to get all the way to the bottom of the street, and when we got down there, we were going to count how many times we had been hit. Then after the next round we where going to count how many times we had hit them.
What happened next was the most ultimate disaster I can recall of my childhood. Another kid and I were skating side-by-side right down the middle of the street when they passed us. Only one kid decided to go in-between us, and we both got clipped by the legs and the pedals. I flew right into the curb, flipped up into the air and landed right on my back on the sidewalk. My starsensor shattered. The kid skating next to me wasn't so lucky. He tumbled over and got run over by another bike, and he broke his arm. I still remember the sound of him screaming.
Starvest with Starsensor. Now imagine it covered with blood.
The kid on the bike lost control and went over the handlebars. The lazer tag gun went flying, and he sprained his wrist and bloodied his nose. He had roadburn up his entire side.
Since I was one of the first casualties, I didn't see the rest of the ride down the hill, but that scene replayed itself several times over. And once the surviving orcs were past the still-standing goblins, they attempted to turn around to go back up the street. But the street was too narrow, and they turned too soon or they finally saw the carnage up street and paused in horror. Either way, they were a wall of bikes, and roller skates don't have airbags or anti-lock brakes. Another broken bone there. A bike wheel completely bent over like a taco shell. About a gallon of blood. A chipped front tooth. A total of six broken starsensors.
There was no second round.
Before we dispersed to carry the injured home, we made lots and lots of promises that we would never, ever,
ever tell our parents what really happened. Even the kids with the broken bones and sprains and chipped tooth agreed. And as far as I could tell, we didn't.
I spent the next day picking red and silver hunks of plastic out of my back, and I eventually had a scab the size of a hamburger on my back, but I knew I was definitely one of the lucky ones, despite the breaking of the starsensor.
Later, we all pretty much agreed it was the coolest thing we had ever done. Even the ones who broke stuff.
AWMondayMemes Summer Vacationlaser tag
Iron Maiden plan to release their new studio album entitled A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, in early September.
Posts
