Have you ever shot a gun? I have. Have you ever shot someone with a gun? I have. How old are you, I’m nine years old. I’ve been shot before, with foam of course. Let me start from the beginning.

I am eagerly awaiting the drive to my favorite place to be in the summer (Not counting Disney World) my cousin, Jon’s house. My family, (My brother, my sister, my parents, and I) all go to see all of my cousins, play games, swim, eat, and so much more. I might be the youngest but they are cool and let me play with them. Now I was getting impatient. My nine-year-old instinct wants to leave right away. Finally my family gets into the car and we head off.

Now when I got here, I did all the things I wanted to do. We swam, we ate, we played football and soccer basically every kids dream. It didn’t end there. My cousins liked the rush of excitement. We still had plenty of time to go. We enter the basement and grab our weapons. “Here you go,” says Jon as he hands me my gun. It is the smallest and weakest gun. It has the least ammo, which was three bullets, and took two shots to kill someone but it was fast and light, traits that I love (I don’t waste time, thank you Sonic the Hedgehog). We split into teams, I am with the two oldest kids against everyone else, (We got the best guns). We split the room in two where we were all safe. Then, the battle began.

My teammates told me to stay at base but I am a nine year old and didn’t listen to them. I rush to shoot someone with the and completely miss. Now I am down to two bullets which just made the miss more terrible. I am camping at the wall because I need a good shot and I know what will happen if I run out of ammo (Now yes this isn’t my first time playing, I know all of the rules). can’t stand still so I run in and fire, blindly. This means I also miss, blindly. I have one bullet left and I am huddled against a wall hoping no one will sneak up on me. Now I really want to hit someone. With the skills, speed, and overall abilities of a nine year old send me to shoot my last bullet, and it was a miss.

Now let me explain what happens when you run out of darts. It is not like paintball where you are helpless unless your teammate gives you ammo (I’ve went paintballing once, I was just as good as it as I was at this). You have to either wait until someone tries to shoot you and pick up that dart and continue. If you are impatient (like me) you will have to go to the other base, pick up a dart, and sprint back. I mean that sounds easy, if you can’t get hit then what’s the problem? Well, you aren’t invincible, all rules of the game still apply, you are basically at the mercy of the other team. Just remember, I am a nine year old, so you can guess which way I chose. I run to the other side, did I remember to find a bullet before running headfirst, no.

A dart hits me in the chest. “Aww man,” I say as I walk to the other side of the basement. I am disappointed as I sit on the couch. The game wasn’t going anywhere but I am still mad. Next time might be better.

There was no next time. Jon got a new flat screen TV so we couldn’t do anything stupid down there. The more I look back at it, nerf wars weren’t that much fun. You were either hugging a wall or trying to shoot someone else who is hugging a wall. It was basically an endurance contest of who will need to go on the other side to reload. A similar thing happened to one of my favorite video games. I got older and noticed so many bad things that I could swear they had when I was younger. Well, I guess that is the price of ageing. I will still play the game, it is really fun, but not as fun as before.