Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 December 2006 10:18:43
I've realised that I don't like paintballing. I'll go and do it if I'm invited, and to an extent I sort of enjoy it, but it's all a bit aggressive and competitive and macho-posturing type of thing, and that's just not me.
Yesterday's adventure for J's birthday is a case in point. There were 14 of us - largely J's family, friends and youth group leaders - alongside another four guys who seemed to be on a stag do of sorts. Three of them were very quiet, the other one, an overexcitable geordie fella, made up for it by talking, shouting, swearing and generally giving it all that at every opportunity. He was, he claimed, an ex-SAS guy ("I've been blown up, I've been shot at, I've had a f**king great chunk carved out of me arm" etc) and he certainly seemed to have a fighting spirit, if no discernable logic to many of his tactics. At the start of one game, where we had to take a supposed bomb from one place to another, his suggestion was, "Right, one of youse take the bomb, everyone else surround 'im, and just run across there with it. I'll create a diversion by f**kin' running as fast as I can at them." We failed to convince him this wasn't a good plan, and - surprise surprise - he got shot straight away, we still failed to get the bomb to its destination and lost the game.
Before we'd started, there had been a very rigourous and detailed safety briefing, which had included a warning to be a little careful with the woodchip on the floor (this was an indoor paintball site, and the woodchip was there to cover over the concrete underneath, in case of falls etc), as it could become slippery during the course of the games. They weren't wrong. It's always entertaining to see your pastor slide over in a spectacular manner, as we did at the start of one game early on, but I was a bit less amused a few games later when I slipped as we ran to get into position, and hit my head against the side of a pillar. Perhaps feeling the machismo of Geordie SAS Nutter rubbing off on me, I figured if it wasn't bleeding, I was fine to carry on. Well, a couple of games later, the concussion caught up with me and I found myself wobbly on my feet and feeling like I was about to black out. After hiding out of the way 'til that game finished, I then went out for some air and water and decided I'd best sit out the last couple of games. (Someone else got a worse injury in the last game though, and was knocked unconscious for a few seconds - at which point, of course, the other team kept firing at him 'cause he hadn't put his hand up to surrender.)
I have a few bruises this morning, but I'm mostly OK and I think my head's fine, so all's well. But I know I'm not a naturally aggressive type of person, and not particularly competitive either, and now having done my second paintballing excursion (the first was only two months ago) I think I can safely say that, if I'm ever having a stag do, it's not going to feature people running about with guns. And definitely not featuring a crazy geordie bloke who talks like he knows a lot more than he does.