Tag! You're It!

Early arrival to a locked gate

Soldier Boy

 On Saturday Vinny and I had the privilege of going to an outdoor Laser tag at Battlezone Laser Tag for his friend Jordan's birthday.  As it turns out Jordan's birthday is in January, but that is in the Jan/Feb high summer - this way of thinking still causes my brain to skip a few cogs - and the temperature outside for an activity such as this will be absolutely unbearable in January.

So the party is now, in November, at 90F degrees, in the bush, in the brutal sun, while wearing a full suit of coveralls and carrying an immensely heavy (for a child) metal laser rifle.  I've seen on their website pictures of groups playing at night.  That may be the way to go, but then all the little nasties are out at night too. 

The day started with us being picked up by the birthday family and being driven to the park outside of town.  Along the drive I noticed that the outlying lands around Perth aren't really much different from the outside lands around Lexington or Louisville, just minus the color green, red clay is replaced by sand, and you can swap the species of bush and tree. Other than that, you'd never guess you were in a totally different area.

Aaron took a peek at the presents.

 The only thing about it that makes one realize they aren't in Kansas anymore are the flies.  These flies are vicious.  Each one of us was chaperoned by our own, individual squadron of the little buggers, and they were taking their orders to heart.  Landing on your glasses. Trying to get into your nose.  Landing on your lips.  Crawling down your shirt. Biting you. Afterward I kicked myself for failing to take a picture of them. If only you could understand. For example, shortly after we arrived, Jordan's father had six flies on his back at once. He had at least four buzzing around his head.  Don't forget the two on his hands and the two or three hovering around his chest.   You brush them away and all they do is try to fly into your nose or ear just to make you mad.  When I'm lucky I can maybe smack one down, but it seems to call in several of its buddies.  Something about the death pheromone, I guess.


I did my best to warn them all that they should enjoy life now, soon they will need to hide, as one day in the future grandpa will come, and he will bring with him his amazing talent of killing flies bare-handed.  Flies, your days are numbered.  If you live more than 24 hours, that is.

Good times

What it boils down to is everyone becomes a horse.  We snort and neigh and jerk our heads to get the flies off our faces about once every ten seconds.  My glasses have suffered as they have been knocked and thrown off my face so many times during the furious flailing and swatting. I'm fortunate they have not been dashed against the rocks or concrete yet.  I like these frames.

Jordan's parents set up the reserved table and chairs and we all sat and awaited the fun to begin.  All the kids were excited about the opportunity to shoot each other.  I was glad to see this social phenomenon was not monopolized by the United States.

The participants were directed into the tents to receive their uniforms.  I took Vinny inside and found him the appropriate size.  He put on the coveralls, found a hat, and had his face painted.  He was rip-roarin ready to go.  He didn't seem swayed by the fact he'd be shooting either.  I remember my cap guns and whatnot, and wish they had these laser things when I was a kid, and I think I turned out okay.

When I was young we had our cap guns.  Even though I fondly remember the hours of loading those long red paper strips into the guns and smelling the sweet aroma of gunpowder after the boom, these newfangled things are quite nice.    I can still remember the day my brother got the cap revolver with the cap rings that you stuck in and pulled out.  I thought that was better than sliced bread.  And then was the indoor laser tag in Lexington and in Knoxville.  But this was a totally different experience.

Sir, yes Sir!

The drill sergeant went over safety rules, first for how to take care of your body, second how to take care of your friends, and third how to properly use the weapon.

It was then that Jordan's mom told me one of the kids couldn't play as he wasn't feeling well, and she wanted to know if I wanted to take his place.  Thinking it would good to be out there with Vinny - I thought he might be scared - I agreed and went and found the uniform stand.

I told the young woman there to give me the biggest size she had.  She apologized that they weren't in Australian sizes, but American, and then I thanked her and told her that would work best for me. After hearing me speak she figured it out.

I got the coveralls on and picked my weapon.  They had many true-to-life replicas with the laser systems welded on.  These weapons were heavy.  I picked the biggest one I could find.

The black team.  Vinny is in the front, second from the left.  Property of Battlezone.

We split into two teams, red and black.  When the drill sergeant was splitting up our table, he asked me which was my child, and I pointed to Vinny, and he immediately put us on opposite teams.  He gave me a thumbs up and said "You'll thank me later," smiling.  I guess he figured I wanted to shoot my own son.   Sure.  Why not.

Vinny and his friend Aaron, Jordan's brother, were on the same team, and Aaron's dad was going along with Aaron, so the three of them formed their own little squad.

The red team.  I'm in the back row with the rifle pointed up.  Property of Battlezone.

I had to sign an indemnity waiver and also a gag order prohibiting me from discussing how the company operates or how the weapons work, but I will say that each weapon had a fully functional red-dot scope and that made things easier, but I wish I'd have found my tiny dot before halfway through round 2.

Both teams.  Property of Battlezone.

We had our pictures made and headed off to round one.

Vinny in the back.  Property of Battlezone.

Round one was just red team vs blue team in an open field.  Each team started at opposite ends and had to make their way forward.  I took a position wide and to the rear, a good place from where I could see as much as the field as I could, and I looked for Vinny.

I never saw him.  I did see his friend Aaron though, and Aaron's dad, who soon seemed to be fixing Aaron's gun a lot.  I found out later that Aaron didn't like the weight of his gun and his dad took it and was using it to shoot people, but he left the sensors on Aaron.  As small as Aaron was, he could keep low or hide and his dad just stood there beaning people.  I bet that was fun.

I was one of the last to flush out.  They had to send four of their members my way to push me out of my position.  They were the young ones.  It became clear to me the black team's strategy - to charge the younglings forward ahead and then to bring their adults in the rear.    Boo.

Big, colorful target. Property of Battlezone.

Round two involved protection of a VIP, namely a commander.  By that time I had taken my coveralls down and tied them around my waist, allowing my patriotic red, white, and blues to shine in the twilight's last gleaming, one of the battlezone ladies asked me if I wanted to be the VIP.  I guess they wanted the biggest colorful target they could find, and I agreed.

My personal guard and I located and dug in at a ruined structure somewhere in the bush.  From our vantage point we could get a good idea from which directions the black team attacked and when.  I split what players I had into two groups to watch the right and left flanks and my guard and I watched from within.  I called for some volunteers to go foward, one for recon and one to push.  It was nice in that structure.  We found some viewpoints from where we could watch and fire and keep our sensors covered.

Property of Battlezone.

It paid off in the end.  I kept an eye out for Vinny but never saw him.  The only time a black team member got a hit on us is when a boy was brought into the structure sick, flushed, with symptoms screaming of heat exhaustion.  I called for the rest of my guard -one to get him back to the main tent- and as we were helping him out the door of the structure one of the black team popped me.  Didn't kill me, just popped me.  So no 100 bonus points for them. Bad karma for them for trying to pop me when removing a truly sick child from the field.

The third and final round was a free for all against a battlezone team.  The goal was to survive.  You could kill one of the battlezone members but they had two guns each and had more lives than you - as they represented a well-known robot from a well-known movie franchise starring a well-known Californian governor.  I had found Vinny by this time and he and I took to the bushes and hid.  The sound of gunfire was everywhere, and as it seemed to get louder we'd get up and duck-and-cover our way around behind the action.  We came across the structure my guard and I had occupied in round 2 and Vinny recognized it, so I knew he was out there, but I never had seen him.  He said that he got shot a lot.  The guns didn't keep track of individual points so I'm not sure if he tagged anyone or not, but he said he had to keep running up and running back.

After a while the sound of fire ended and we made our way to the home tent where we realized that the game had actually ended ten minutes prior and we were the last to arrive.  This was the longest laser tag encounter I've ever had.  We were in the bush for several hours.

Vinny wanted Mama to see his cupcake

The battlezone crew cooked a sausage "sizzle" - a cookout- and we got grilled hot dogs and drinks, but we were so exhausted from the heat that we didn't eat anything.  We sipped some water for a while, and when the cupcakes came around for Jordan's birthday Vinny had his.  He didn't get sick.

The drill sergeant came around and announced who won the rounds.

Red team won both competition rounds (the first two)!

Everyone won the third round, as most humans survived.

As the party wrapped up we helped clean up and carry all the stuff back to the car.  Along they way, tired of batting flies, I told Aaron's father I had a new strategy, to EAT the flies, and sure enough, not ten seconds later, a fly decided to oblige.  Straight into my mouth.   At least I ate something that day.