HAWK - 1, BIRD - 0

I went paintballing two weekends ago and it was pretty good times.  I recommend it if you’ve never been; that said, I don't recommend you go with me.  Paintballing brought out the worst of my personality.  It also made me realize that if the Apocalypse ever goes down, and we all have to fight for survival, I'll be next to useless to any of you.  My go-to strategy in a crisis is self-preservation at all costs.  My motto in warfare is: "Charge late, be quick to take cover, and retreat early".  I have some bad news, Private Ryan, you're on your own.  I always call for cover before I make a move, even when I don't need it, and in order to conserve ammo, I never give cover when it's called for by others.  If I think I can hit an enemy without getting out from behind my tree or stump or whatever, I will fire, even if it means I might have to wing one of my own teammates in the process.  Anything in front of me is fair game, and I shoot people in the back just as well as front.  Interestingly, despite my devotion to protecting myself, I still manage to get shot quite frequently, go figure.

Anyway, so we played paintball for a few hours one Saturday afternoon.  The refs/owners of the field broke the day up into about 5 or 6 little games or war scenarios.  In one of these games, our team had to defend an old shed from enemies who were trying to plant a bomb (an old metal ammo box) inside it.  Pretending I was a team player, I told my team captain, "I'll rush the field and get right inside that shed and defend it!"

My teammates all thought I was very brave.  Really though, I was just tired of all the running around and hiding.  I thought spending 10 minutes in a shed where I could relax would be great.  The refs blew the whistle to start the game, and I bolted for that shed.  Unfortunately, I tripped on the way there because I can't do anything right, and I smashed my knee up on a root.  I rolled around for a minute, like a turtle trying to get off its back, then I picked up my gun and limped the rest of the way to the shed while two of my teammates put themselves in harm's way to cover me.  I got inside safely and sat down to relax for a minute.  Outside, I could hear my teammates shouting for me to cover them so they could get to safety, and one guy who covered me on my way to the shed kept begging me to toss him some ammo out the window, apparently he was all out or something, I don't know.  I had just sat down, y'know?  Like, holy boys, give me a fucking second.  I just skinned my knee for god's sake!  Anyway, the hero that ran out of ammo, he got shot pretty soon after that, so I didn't have to listen to him anymore, which was good.  From where I was sitting in the shed, I could see a couple more of my teammates get picked off too.  Too bad for them.  Once I had had a chance to relax for a bit, I stood up, took position, and leaned out the door to shoot some people.  Rather than lean out too far and expose myself to my enemies, I more or less just stuck the barrel of my gun out the door and blind-fired.  I usually missed, but a few times I managed to hit some people in the knuckles, or the side of the neck.  Apparently that's not fair, or not honourable or something, but whatever, I didn't care.  Complain all you want crybabies, you're still out!  That's war, look it up.  Man, it was so easy to win at paintball this way.

I was having a pretty good time shooting at people who didn't know where I was, and then, all of the sudden somebody slid the bomb into the shed, right in front of me!  Forget that noise! This shed was mine!  I grabbed the bomb and tossed it right back outside the shed (which was all that was required to "defuse" it).  I meant to throw it where I could still see it; I figured if anyone tried to pick it up I could shoot them in the fingers.  However, because I stupidly tossed it out of my line of sight, I had to I adjust my gun and lean out the door.  As I leaned out, Adam, a co-worker of mine who was on the other team, was leaning in at the same time.  I was face-to-face with my enemy.  Time stood still.

Now, while time is standing still, let me explain some things to you.

I had been shot about 9 times that day.  Of those 9 shots, about 6 of them had come from Adam.  That guy just always seemed to be wherever I was.  In each of the games I would see him step out from behind a tree or a bush and I would unload on him, shot after shot, and nothing would hit him.  It was almost supernatural.  It was like in the ending of Ernest Goes to Camp, when the bad guy tries to shoot Ernest at close-range and somehow misses three times in a row because Ernest was protected by the Spirit of the Land or some shit because he crazy-nice to all the troubled inner-city kids.  Anyway, Adam must have been pretty nice to some street urchins at some point, because he was protected by the Spirit of the Paintball Grounds.  I couldn't hit him no matter what I did, and he'd raise his gun all calm and "gentle warrior" like and put one in my chest.  It was bullshit!

There was a point in one of the games when I could see the top of Adam's head above a big pile of dirt, and I spent 8 minutes trying to hit it.  8 MINUTES!!!  I didn't move from where I was.  I just sent shot after shot whizzing by his melon.  Then, someone else on my team took him out with a single shot!  In another game, I ended up on one side of a small copse of trees, saplings really, with Adam on the other.  We were probably only about 15 feet away from one another when we both opened fire.  At no time did we lose sight of one another, but none of our paintballs reached each other.  The little trees provided enough of a screen to stop most of the shots from getting through.  Both of us shimmied, jinked, and danced from side to side, trying not to get hit.  We looked ridiculous.  It looked like an impromptu "So you think you can dance" competition on a battlefield.  It looked like we might have been gassed with some sort of neurotoxin that makes your booty shake before you start convulsing so hard you snap your own spinal cord.  If aliens had been watching us, they might have thought we were engaged in some sort of mating ritual dance to attract each other [I can assure you it didn't work!].  Anyway, while I was getting all crump and jive on one side of the trees, Adam gets wise and stops dancing long enough to take a step to the side of the trees and shoot me in the shoulder like a punk.  What a dick,eh?!

The point of my telling you all of this is just to point out that Adam was my obsession that day.  It was like that line from The Hagakure: "...taking an enemy on the battlefield is like a hawk taking a bird. Even though it enters into the midst of a thousand of them, it gives no attention to any bird than the one it first marked."

So that brings us back to me leaning out of the shed and being face-to-face with Adam.
The Hawk had finally found the Bird!

According to Adam, he said "I surrender" when he leaned in the shed and saw me with my gun.  I call bullshit on that, though.  I didn't hear him say shit, but I have to be honest, even if I had heard it, at that point Adam was getting shot regardless.  Anyway, I didn't hear it, and all I saw was Adam bring his arms up, raising his gun.  Now, maybe this was the beginning of a hands-up "I surrender"-type move, but I wasn't waiting around to find out.  I didn't even bring my gun up all the way, I shot from the hip and nailed that man, point-blank, right in the bikini zone.

My regret, much like Adam's pain, was immediate.  He doubled over in pain for a second, and I felt horrible.  What had I become?  I had come here to have a good time, and now here I was, hiding in a shed with a smashed kneecap, letting my teammates get mowed down, and shooting my own friends point-blank in the groin.  I think that one action speaks volumes about the kind of person I am.  

When the chips are down, I shoots for the genitals.

Now don't go feeling too bad for Adam, he got me back.  In the very last game of the day I got pinned down inside the cab of a broken down truck.  I got blown away like Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.  It was epic.  Though a number of people shot me, it was Adam who snuck around behind me and blasted me with three shots close-range shots to the kidneys.  They left welts the size of quarters.  Good for him, I deserved it.  That said, apparently Adam's bikini zone bruised so horrendously the next day he took some pictures of it (possibly in the hopes of pursuing legal action) and he showed the guys at work.  Now they call him "Peaches" because he bruises so easy.

Hawk -1     Bird - 0

Esta noche bailamos!

Alright, so, I don't dance...like ever!

It's just not something I'm able to do. I'm too conscious of my own movements. When I've tried to dance in the past, it was just a horrible out of control situation with my brain trying to regulate everything I was doing:

"Hey, Left Leg, stop that! Where the hell are you going, Right Arm?! Hips! Don't you dare thrust again!"

It's exhausting, and to other people, it probably looks like a cross between someone having a seizure and someone that has walked face-first into a large spiderweb that no one else can see. I've slow-danced a few times, and I've been grinded a couple times, but that doesn't really count. I don't, can't, and won't dance. End of discussion.

So, here's the story:
My buddy and I went to a friend's wedding this past weekend. It was fun. Nice ceremony. Great reception. Delicious food. Everything was great. What I want to tell you about though, is the dance that took place after the wedding.

The bride and her family are Spanish, you see, and so half of the attendees were also Spanish. There were some white people there too, the husband's side, some guests, but there's just something about us white people, we tend to become background when there are people with an actual culture present.

My buddy and I, we are both very white. We've got skin the colour of cooked-salmon. The skin of Irish men who sit around too much and get flustered over little things very easily. Either one of us would probably allow a great number of horrible things happen to our loved ones before we would even think about approaching a dance floor. We're just in the wrong place this evening. We don't even look like we're at the wedding, we look like security guards, really useless security guards.

Now, when I tell you that the Spanish people at this wedding enjoyed dancing, please don't think I'm just saying "Hey, these people like to dance".  No, no, you need to listen to me! These people look like they're under some sort of spell. Remember in that movie about the witches, Hocus Pocus, when Bette Midler curses all the adults of the town into dancing uncontrollably? That's exactly what this looks like, except, what's even more supernatural, is the fact that ALL of these people can dance like they've been professionally trained, and it's not just the adults! Whether they're seven or seventy, pregnant, on crutches, missing legs, it doesn't fucking matter, these people are all on FIRE! The white people are clearly outmatched. The DJ played some country, and some rock, but that was more or less just to give the Spanish people a chance to pee, smoke, or breathe. It was the only time they stopped.

My buddy and I, we're invited out to dance a number of times, but I can promise you that there was no way that shit was happening.

"We don't dance" we say again and again. We should have brought signs.

"There's no better time to start, come on!" one girl says when she stops to chat with us. [NOTE: While she talked with us, she continued to dance where she was standing, not even joking]

With regards to her point that there would be no better time to start dancing, I have to disagree. A good time to learn to dance would be alone in front of a forgiving mirror, or with a small group of beginners in a controlled setting, faaaar away from the public eye, or maybe even in a school for the blind. The absolute worst time to take up dancing would be right now, out there on the dance floor with all these people who are definitely not fucking around.

No, I'm sorry! If I go out there now, I'll be trampled under the fast-moving shoes of a cat named Paco who, as near as I can tell, made a deal with the Devil at some point in his life to be able to destroy that dancefloor any time he chooses. The soles of this guy's shoes have to be about 150 degrees right now. He's been going for 40 minutes and hasn't even broken a sweat. Even if he did break a sweat, it would probably just be a few drops of wine. The wine is like gasoline for their legs! The alcohol doesn't seem to slow them down or make them clumsy, on the contrary, it's enhancing their already amazing abilities. I find myself seriously wondering if there's ever been a time when a dance floor has caught fire due to the friction-heat of shoes. If it ever has, I bet Paco was there for it, and I bet he kept dancing.

There was a point at which I realized I had had too much to drink, and I told my buddy it was time to go. He agreed. You see, the danger is that we get too drunk to remember that we can't dance, and get out there to try. Ugh, I feel sick just thinking about it. It would have been awful. They probably would have stopped the music, turned on all the lights, and made an announcement like, "For their own safety, the Vanillas are reminded to stay off the dance floor". Either that, or Paco would see us struggling out there and be forced to deliver a coup de grace to each of us with a tear in his eye.

I mean no disrespect, Spanish people. If I could be born into a different culture or race, I'd pick something Spanish, for sure. I'm just generalizing and propagating a stereotype here. I'm sure there are lots of Spanish people who can't dance; but, I'm also sure those ones get banished from their communities like lepers or werewolves.

Whatever happens to those Spanish people who can't dance, I know one thing, they certainly didn't get invited to this party.