It's pretty much common knowledge that kids often do stupid things, primarily because it takes awhile for wisdom to settle in to point out the possible consequences of any given action.
Growing up, my friends and I spent a lot of time doing stupid and dangerous things, without really even realizing they were stupid and dangerous. At the time, stupid and dangerous activities had a strange way of masquerading around as "fun."
All of which explains my short-lived career playing dart wars at the age of 12 or so.
Dart Wars, for those of you not familiar with the dart war craze--which should be pretty much everyone outside of my childhood clique of friends--were, as the name implies, wars fought using darts. As in the plastic darts with the metal, needle-sharp tips.
I'm not sure who invented dart wars, although all evidence points to my friends Jim and Joe, but the dart war craze was rapidly adopted as the THE out-of-school activity to engage in, and it remained that way for about a week.
Dart Wars required, at a minimum, two players, but opposing teams of three or more weren't uncommon. We'd select a locale, which was typically the bedroom or basement of one of the players, and then we'd select teammates. Then, we'd march to separate sides of the room and erect forts using whatever materials were available to us, such as pillows and blankets and furniture.
Then we'd proceed to whip darts at each other.
At some point, you'd think we would have realized how incredibly dangerous dart wars were and, truth be told, I think we all pretty much knew, deep down, that dart wars were ill-advised. But that didn't stop us from chucking darts at one another at truly astonishing rates of speed.
Maybe it was due to our brilliantly-made forts, or maybe it was because we all had terrible aim, but no one ever got seriously hurt playing dart wars. Oh, sure, there was the occasional arm strike or thigh puncture but, for the most part, injuries were kept at a minimum.
Then, one day, about a week after we started playing dart wars, we heard a story. Apparently, Jim and Joe, playing a two man dart war at Jim's house, had a bit of an accident. Joe had whipped a dart just as Jim poked his head out of his fort to whip a dart of his own.
The dart struck Jim directly between the eyes. And it stuck there. There was no major damage, and Jim exhibits no ill-effects to this day. But, the story, with the mental image of Jim standing there, shocked, with a dart sticking out between his eyes, pretty much brought an end to our dart wars then and there.
Which is a little bit of a pity, because I was a darned good player.
Posted by Ryan at August 19, 2004 11:41 AMBack when I lived in Pittsburgh I had a roommate who grew up playing, essentially, lawn dart wars.
Posted by: David Grenier at August 19, 2004 12:14 PMWhen I was 10 my friends and I got into playing dart chicken. The way to play dart chicken is, two kids stand in a park or a yard, at a distance of about 60 feet. Then one of them lobs a dart at the other one in a long, loping, howitzer arc. The person the dart is being lobbed at can easily avoid it, but that's not the game. The game is to go stand directly where you think the dart is going to come down, then dodge it at the last possible second in some really cool and acrobatic fashion.
I got one in my lower back that sank in all the way to the hilt doing that.
My friend Gordy and I also used to play with darts. We didn't play dart chicken—we just went around the neighborhood with some steel-tipped darts in our pockets (usually poked into a tennis ball for safety), throwing them at things whenever we saw a good target. This works out to be more fun than it sounds like it could be. The trick was to do it really suddenly, with no wind-up or telegraphing of any kind. Like a ninja.
But sometimes we'd just pick a tree and chuck darts at it as hard as we could. The goal in that game was to stick the dart all the way in.
So one day we were playing this game in his yard, throwing darts at an old cherry tree, and Gordy's dart hit the tree on the side and got slapped way off to the left. As he went to get his dart, I wound up and threw mine at the tree as hard as I possible could. It hit the side of the tree, pretty much exactly like Gordy's had, and skipped off— pretty much exactly like Gordy's had. And for a millisecond I was totally confused, because I thought I'd hit the tree dead on. Then my brain registered that instead of the +thunk+ I usually heard after throwing at the tree, what I'd heard this time was a *thwack*-chunk-"Uht."
And as I was standing there trying to think of what would make that noise-- *thwack*-chunk-"Uht." --I heard Gordy say,
"Josh."
But it sounded like he was trying to talk around a carrot or something.
I looked over and, sure enough, the red plastic dart was sticking out of the side of Gordy's head, about an inch in front of his ear. It was in all the way to the hilt. And for a second I couldn't really absorb what I was seeing, so I just stood there and stared.
For his part, Gordy wasn't crying or carrying on or doing any of the stuff you'd expect a 12-year-old to do when he's got a steel-tipped dart sticking out of the side of his head. He was just looking exasperated and impatient.
"When I get this out," he said, without moving his jaw, "I'm going to kill you."
It came out as something like, "Hen A het hiss oaa, A'n 'oing hoo hill ew."
I laughed. Caught myself. Shook my head.
"Dude. I am so sorry."
"Hu'e'er."
His mom, not surprisingly, flipped out. When he got to the hospital the doctor did pretty much what I would have done—took a pair of pliers and pulled the dart out. It turned out the dart had gone through his jaw muscle, between his skull an his jaw bone, and was poking through into his mouth. When the tip went through the muscle, the muscle cramped up— so it really did take a pretty solid pull to get the dart out. Gordy said two nurses had to hold his head.
It was sore for a little while, but there was hardly even a scar after it healed up.
Gordy never did beat me up over it or anything. We just told the story to everyone we knew.
How come I know, JUST KNEW, Joshua was going to have a similar tale to relate. Our childhoods were so totally different, yet remarkably the same.
And yours' was funnier, damnit.
Posted by: Ryan at August 19, 2004 01:28 PMWe never used darts, but in a friend's basement, which was completely unfinished so it was basically just four cement walls, we would play ball wars. It was the same as your dart wars except replace the darts with anything you could find that was round (basketballs, baseballs, nerf balls, golf balls, etc.). It was pretty fun until one of the kids took a baseball to their forearm and it broke (the arm, not the ball). After that day there were no more ball wars.....
.....so instead we started playing kickball in the basement instead, until the water softener got broken, but that's another story.
Posted by: Rick at August 19, 2004 01:53 PMMy first year of college, at Evergreen, my friend Chandler and I used to go to the college library in the middle of the night and have superball wars. The Evergeen campus is located about 10 miles outside of Olympia Washington, which is a small town to begin with, so the whole campus was open-- in the sense of "unlocked" --24/7.
So we'd go to one of the classrooms in the library at around 1:00am and shove all the furniture out in the hallway. Then we'd hang a disco ball from the sound tiles in the middle of the room, point a floor lamp at it, dump about 20 superballs into the middle of the room and just start chucking them at each other. Me and Chandler were the only two consistent players, but we'd sometimes have as many as five or six other people with us. It was a good time.
I used to do this other thing with that same crew at Evergreen: we'd all get dressed up in suit jackets and evening gowns, take a stereo, an end-table, a floor lamp, and a table cloth into the elevator, and set it up like a little room. We'd hang drapes on the walls and stuff-- totally decked out. Then we'd all pile in there-- six or seven of us --and wait for people to use the elevator.
The doors open, we're all standing there smiling.
The nervous person gets on.
The doors close and--
The stereo comes on and everyone starts talking, reciting poetry, telling jokes, laughing, drinking, eating whatever we brought with us--
The doors open and we stop.
The person gets off. We wait for our next victim.
Fun way to spend a slow night ten miles outside Olympia.
Posted by: Joshua at August 19, 2004 02:12 PMDo you see any reason to post comments on blogs such as http://kerryhaters.blogspot.com
Posted by: lin lou jones at August 19, 2004 05:16 PMThe elevator is a very cool idea. What kinds of reactions did you get? I mean, I'd have been a little hurt if no one asked me to dance.
Posted by: Donna at August 19, 2004 08:23 PMRyan -- Joshua always has a better story. Either he's a remarkably creative guy and making it all up, or he had a remarkably accidentally violent childhood.
From looking at his blog, I think it's real.
On another note: I have a lot of friends who used to sail. They would have bottle rocket wars launched from sailboat to sailboat. The plastic screw-off handle of those hollow paddles made great launchers. They also from time to time had fireworks wars on land. Amazing nobody lost a hand or something.
My game (with my brother and friends) was wooden-kitchen-spoon-and-tennis-ball hockey. The spoons broke frequently of course, so we so learned to wrap them in large quantities of duct tape. They still broke, of course, just not as quickly; and they didn't hurt as much when you got accidentally clocked with one.
Then there was the Tarzan swing over the old creekbed, but that's a story for another time... :)
Posted by: Strider at August 20, 2004 12:33 PMI saw this blog and figured what the heck...
When I was around 8-10 yrs old, I had bottle rocket wars in the country.. Pretty simple game and no one got hurt. At the same era, my family and neighboring kids would tie a piece of plywood or an old sign if I remember correctly, to a 4 wheeler and play king of the sled.
Posted by: Garret at April 30, 2005 01:27 AMaround 14 I got together with a few friends and found a construction site and played "every man for himself" BB gun fight. Every one could only pump once.. of course mine was the coolest one that could only pump once... It started getting late and someone called "quits" but one knucklehead had everyone pinned down. I felt like being the hero so I did a spin turn stand up motion and pegged him in the shin. The BB had riquochet off the bone but left a nice little pit. Even though it was an assholish thing to do, I was considered a badass for a week or two.
About that same time, I would have paper and rubberband fights. I don't recall it having a name, but I remember it very detailed. Take a piece of paper and roll it, then fold it in half. It forms a "V" shape. Then slingshot it with a decent rubber band. Hey man.. it was cheap fun...!
I popped my friend in the eyelid. I think that was the last game we every played. I was really good at that game!
About that same time, a group of 5 friends and I were swimming in a neighboring pool at an apartment complex. We decided to throw water filled sprite cans at each other (lobbing arc). For some odd stupid reason, I folded a can in half, and it formed a crease. I threw it as high as I could. One of my friends attempted a dive catch and screamed. His voice was very distinctive with a raspy sound to it. I will never forget that blood curdling scream he gave. Apparently the can slid down the forefinger closest to the thumb and lacerated pretty damn deep. He expectedly threatened to kick my ass. I swear I didn't intend on hurting anyone. Later that day, I was walking around the corner and he spotted me from his house and ran over to me. He started bitching at me and literally kicked me in the ass with all his might. I was more embarrassed than anything and definitely deserved it. Just one of the thousand stupid things I have done. I could sit here all night and probably through the weekend telling stories. You know those Navy commercials? If someone would write a book about your life, would anyone read it?
I guarantee you that my stories are hard to believe...
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