Saved by My Toes
I’ve managed to escape one particular activity that causes your life to flash before your very eyes for all my life.
Until today.
I happily signed up for this outstation trip assignment and assured my superiors that my toes were perfectly healed and since there was no mountain climbing nor strenuous walking involved, I should be fine. My legs still do hurt when I climb up and down the stairs but that shouldn’t deter me from observing, interacting with people I meet and taking note of my travel experiences.
What I didn’t realise was, by signing up, I also agreed to participate in all the activities in the itinerary including the very much dreaded activity I mentioned in my first sentence …. PAINTBALL.
That is one word that strikes a chord of fear in my heart. An equally scary word to me would be bungee jumping. If bungee jumping to me is like wanting to commit suicide but not quite, then paintball is enlisting in the army to be in the thick of warfare but also, not quite there lar.
I don’t like strategy games like Risk and such. Heck, I don’t even like watching Rambo with his brawns and mindless shooting sprees. I never had a secret fantasy of joining the army or the SWAT team. And most of all, I don’t like getting shot at and having paint splattered all over me.
In short, there is nothing in paintball that I like. So I never bothered.
There are times in life when you think you detest something until you try it and discover that it’s not as bad as you think it was. As I don my camouflage shirt, vest and face mask and went into the fighting arena with my team members, I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, I was wrong about paintball. And I would discover that it would be somewhat enjoyable or bearable at the very least.
I hoped in vain.
The duration of suffering was short – a mere 5 minutes per game due to the large crowd that we had. Or even lesser if a team manages to seize the opponent team’s flag – a bright orange T-shirt draped languidly on a tree in this case.
I walked into the fighting field holding the heavy gun called the ‘Marker’ with sandaled feet that felt like jello. I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter house.
“10 seconds count!” shouts the marshal.
And then the 10 seconds were up and we were running on the forest grounds made slippery by heavy rainfall earlier that morning. Our guns shot at the ‘enemy’ rampantly. I hid behind a big barrier and just shot at anyone I saw from the opposing team. I must have shot 20 to 30 pellets and caused at least 1 casualty when suddenly I felt something hit my cheek and a splash of bright pink paint stained my left ear and cheek. My mouth tasted the metallic taste of paint. Yucks.
I raised my hand to indicate that I was dead and walked over to the side.
The marshal was barking orders at me for safety reasons, “Sheath your gun! Don’t open your face mask until the game is over and you are out of the arena!”
It was good that he constantly shouted these reminders as an unlocked gun can cause a lot of damage to someone who had no face mask to protect their eyes and face. And it’s not uncommon to want to rip that darn face mask off your face – it’s that uncomfortable! It fogs up after a while and when you can’t see a thing in front of you, it freaks you out even more being out there in the battle field. There is a way to prevent fogging by breathing in through the nose and exhaling through your mouth. But that takes practice. Something I don’t plan on doing after this.
Soon the game was over when our enemy managed to grab our flag and I staggered out to freedom, took off my face mask and took in big gulps of fresh air.
“Can I skip the next two games? I don’t want to risk injuring my toes as I didn’t bring proper sport shoes,” I told the person in charge. Which was all very true. I just didn’t add that paintball just plain freaked me out.
She took one look at my scabby toes and quickly agreed. Another girl tried her luck but since her toes were in perfect condition and she had no other injuries to boast of, she didn’t get let off the hook.
So yeah, I was saved by my toes – literally.
Enjoy the pics but do not be deceived by my smiley face. They were taken before the game began when I was still harboring hope that I’d find paintball palatable.
My Sungai Tengi team
While they were strategising, I was photo shooting
Me in camouflage and sandals!
The torture equipment
Photo credits: My pic taken by Alex
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Guess what I’m doing on Monday. :D Heheheh
Hehe, yes and there are those who are addicted to the game. What do u like about it?
I get to shoot people? Heheh.
Adrenalin, plenty of gadgets to go around, Cops and robbers for adults.
I may grow up.
Someday. Hehe.
I’m taking a group of mainly uncles and aunties from church. Its going to be interesting. :D
I’m getting extra people out on the field to keep an eye on them.
Oh mama mia. I can just imagine this scenario:
Marshal: Face mask on!!!
Uncle: Young man, watch your tone. Don’t tell me what to do. I ate more salt than you.
Disaster!
Joke aside, hope u guys have fun on Mon :)
do u know any “i dont like paintball” club? cos if u do, i wanna join too! =P
my department is suggesting to have a paintball outing, which i disagree 100%, but they said, it’s the only time we can shoot the bosses… ^__^
I don’t know of any but hey, a BIG welcome to the unofficial club!!!
You tried it before? Pls do share yr experience if u did :D
err..no i haven’t tried it before…=P the bruises just scared me… (but i don’t mind watching people playing though)…
The paintball went well yesterday. We had six groups of six and we played with different objectives each time. Made it a point to turn aound games quickly.
Some of the uncles and aunties surprised us with how aggressive they got. Hahah.
Hyrza, yeah I’ve seen some of those bruises n they look like vampire’s kisses. :p
Fooman, wah am impressed by the uncles n aunties who took paintball with gusto. Congrats on such a successful outing! :)
I always thought paintball bruises looked like giant octopus love bites. Hahah.
Yeah, the were rolling around and crawling in the mud.
LOL! Meaning to say you’ve had an octopus biting you lovingly before eh??
Wah, hard to imagine folks my parents’ age crawling in the mud and enjoying themselves. Must have been a sight! You have pics?
this is a guy’s game. i don’t see many girls who enjoy a good slithering through mud. their false nails and hairdo tend to get a bit out of shape…
You know lah, scuba divers and their octopus affairs. hehe
I had people who were bravely doing the combat photographer and videographer thing. Haven’t seen the pics yet.
Kwipex, you forget an important thing – we gals don’t usually have a propensity for violence either :P
You mean they were in the arena snapping pics and video with their facemasks on?? Wowzers.
oi, coolcat, your blog has been fixed with iron bars orsomethin’…now need passwords to access new entries?
Actually Paintball was designed with the ultimate Emotional Expose in mind. People’s inner workings and their emotional makeup come out into the open. you can easily see a person who’s a risk taker by him/her moving forward without proper cover. the prima donnas brazenly run into the line of fire and attempt bravado. you can also note a person who’s more calculated – plays a tactical game while waiting for openings.
maybe your ‘stickability’ quotient in a new recruit (no pun intended) might appear in a game of Paintball after the stickability of the paint is washed off.
Kwipex, what do you mean passwords to access new entries? Alamak, you can’t comment on new entries? No wonder my blog has been very quiet. Very very strange leh. Thanks for the heads up!
Dei, methinks you overrated the benefits of playing paintball leh. A psychological tool pulak. Hmmm, if it is so, then I must be a brazen coward. I didn’t cower but I still need to hide the bulk of my body behind something :P
tried to post comments by clicking on ‘Comments’ or the blog title but it goes to a page requiring a password. i thought you were having problems with rogue visitors or something
bleh…can’t access any of your newer blogs. can only access this one by clicking on the right hand side column of new posts. anyway, in my opinion, Indomie and the whole host of instant noodles is the King of All Toxic Foods. Strange how you ascribe to the noodles in the masculine gender.
Well, I’m in love with Indomie as in a lifelong type of marriage leh. So it behooves me to genderise it as male lor.
Yeah, it’s not the best thing to eat in the world. But didn’t they say that if it tastes bad it must be healthy? :P