Silly Love Part I

Women are an irreconcilable parodox. Men are clumsy engineers trying to solve for X. Humor is where we intersect if we dare to laugh at ourselves.

When I first remember seeing Mark, a friend pointed him out and said, "That guy goes to my school. I don't know his name, but I call him Spock because of his eyebrows." I was smitten and entranced...wait, no, I barely remember him, but I laughed because the eyebrow comment was dead on. Mark was a skinny guy sharply pointed eyebrows, jet black hair parted in the middle in the popular 90's bowl cut, glasses, and a fondness for Magic the Gathering and D&D. Exactly the nerdy combination of every high school girl's dreams. That's not when we met, but since I couldn't really see him when we met, it's a good place to introduce him.

Mark and I met in the woods. It was an unseasonably warm autumn day, half the leaves had already fallen creating a crunching blanket underfoot, and I silently cursed the sound with every movement. At least I had plenty of cover as I belly-crawled through the underbrush and over the boulders. My goal was to create the smallest target area as possible, move as silently as a breeze, and sneak up to capture the enemy's flag like a ghost in the dark. I may have been a bit theatrical and overcommitted, but I'm certainly not exaggerating.

I looked over at Jenny with a "Y," she and I were the only girls on our paintball team, and we were determined to not get marked before grabbing that flag and winning this game. Our whispered conversations sounded schizophrenic because we were both named Jenn(i)(y). Interesting historical fact: parents in the 80's only chose from 6 girl names, so a lot of us were named Jenn(i)(y). We decided the best plan was for one of us to make a break for the flag and the other to provide cover from a hidden position. We knew it was unlikely for the runner to escape unscathed, but once the runner was down, the defensive Jenn(i)(y) would pick up the flag, and escape for the win. It was a solid plan.

Jenny with a "Y" was dressed head to toe in black, and I was wearing authentic camo military gear I had picked up at Army Surplus on clearance, that's also where I had bought the old canvas ammo bag that I used as a purse. I still think that was a cool purse, but those pants were not designed with a short "athletic" girl in mind, and they were both tight and baggy in all the wrong places. I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but those pants were really uncomfortable and my mask was fogging up from sweating like a salty sprinkler in the humid Oklahoma afternoon. Ironically, none of this discomfort compared to the itching that I would experience later that night from the innumerable chigger bites I was getting as I crawled through the undergrowth in the woods.

By the time we spotted the other team's flag, the guys on our team were firing paintballs like crazy. We thought we could use their chaos to sneak toward our goal, but all our well-laid plans ended up being unnecessary. The flag was unguarded! Well, technically, there were players from the other team there, but they weren't guarding the flag. The other team had the opposite composition to our team, it was nearly all girls with only a few boys. They had left the smallest and girliest girls by the flag. The girls were sitting around on rocks chatting or crouched down avoiding the direction of the boys' noisy battle. Most of them couldn't see their flag and none of them were watching it.

Still, we stuck to our original plan. I dashed for the flag and snatched it off the branch. By the time the "guards" noticed me, I was already beyond the treeline heading for a rocky ridge. They fired shots behind us as we ran and yelled for help from the rest of their team, but the boys on their team were pinned down where they had been trying to attack our flag. The guards on my team were more alert and kept the flag thieves at bay. Jenny with a "Y" and I ran full out across our boundary to the sound of paintballs popping uselessly into the leaves and the guys on our team cheering. Picture perfect.

The next game wasn't "capture the flag" it was sort of like "last man standing" and the last team with at least one player on the field won. Before the game started, all the boys were buying refills to reload their paintball guns, but I figured I still had plenty of paintballs left, so I saved my money. This miscalculation along with a good deal of pride from winning the previous game definitely contributed to the painfully memorable events that followed.

My strategy for this game wasn't terribly different from the last game, I would stay low to the ground, collecting chigger bites, and making myself into the smallest target possible and hopefully outlast the other team. Unfortunately, this field was smaller and more clear, so my strategy shifted immediately into: shoot and run. I ran to the edge of the field where obstacles had been set up for cover. I had grossly underestimated my ammo usage in a wild free-for-all, and I had quickly run out.

I knew I had very few options, but I was still feeling pretty invincible from winning the last game. The safest move would be to plug my barrel, put my hands up, call "I'm Out," and leave the field. I didn't consider that cowardly and very, very rational option for a single moment. The cleverest move would be to hunker down and hope no one from the other team found me. I started to do that. I crouched behind an enormous wooden spool. Then I heard players from the other team coming toward me and I had to make a choice. If they got close to me they could order me to surrender, and if I waited in my hiding spot, they would find me very soon. There was one final option, a maverick, hail mary move, reckless, bold, big risk, but if I pulled it off, I would be a legend. I decided almost instantaneously that I would sneak up on the other players and using my very, very empty paintball gun, tell them to surrender. Visions of glorious victory blinded me.

Looking back, I can see several flaws in this decision, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The events that followed are embarrassing, but allow me to summarize: I tried to sneak up on the players, yes multiple players, with only false bravado and an empty paintball gun. They immediately saw me and began to fire. At this point, I was pinned down, but I still could have surrendered, or capped my barrel and called, "Out!" I did not.

My hesitation allowed the other players to move up to the other side of the spool in a coordinated, military-style, tag-team move. Outnumbered, without ammo, and faced with well-armed opponents mere feet from me, I should have just surrendered. In fact, they were yelling, "Surrender or die!" at me. I once again stuck to my plan. I shouted, "Surrender!" back at them as I jumped out into the open brandishing my useless gun. And I was summarily shot in the face at point-blank range by the opponent who had been waiting for, and warning, me.

Paintballs are made of non-toxic colored fish oil. How do I know? Oh, I got shot in the chin. The impact of being shot from three feet away cut my face spraying blood and fishy paint forcefully into my mouth. I gagged. I had the good sense to not remove the facemask protecting my eyes until I stumbled off the field; that was definitely the first good decision I made here. The minute I was out of the game I swept the foggy, sweat-steamed mask to the ground, I choked, spluttered, and tried not to vomit. I failed. Sweaty, bleeding, eyes watering, I doubled over and lost it.

And that's the first time Mark and I met. Through my tear-blurred eyes, I couldn't see who shot me or focus on anything beyond the violent gagging, sweat, and blood. I had been shot by Spock.

Years later I got to hear Mark's version of events, he claims to this day that his brother shot me, but no one else remembers it that way. In Mark's version, he turned to his brother as I stumbled away gagging and stupid, and he said, "She's cute."

Thus began our epic love story.