Today was my son’s birthday and we celebrated it at Laser Tag. In between being chattered to death right now, I’ll tell you how it went. Oh my God, at some point don’t they lose their voice or something?
First, here is a post I did a few months ago about my involvement
Mombo- I Am a Bad Ass With a Lazer Tag Gun
I take laser tag VERY seriously. I ensure not to wear white as it becomes neon during missions and stands out like a sore thumb. My sister and I talk strategy and what we could have done better last year. Lastly we make sure to listen for all enemy “chatter”.
Once we arrived at laser tag we had approximately 10 minutes until the first “mission”. I was ready to kick ass. I was eyeing younger children I could take out immediately.
My son was so excited and of course him along with his friends were acting like the “big man on campus” during the laser tag briefing. They were almost kicked out for back talking the “party leader”, chattering while the briefing was going on. I could tell this was going to be a long day.
Inside the laser tag arena I made my way to the “red base”. My sister and I had agreed I would guard first. No one was there yet and my sole job was to protect it. A few minutes later a mother and her daughter showed up, both with red vests. So they were part of the club and ready to defend.
Then my son showed up in his blue vest.
P would not stop “killing” the little 5-year-old girl in the red vest. In retaliation she found a loop-hole and began shooting my son over and over and over again. Personally I thought it was funny. After “dying” for about 3 minutes my son snapped and yelled at her.
“Quit killing me you little brat!” he screamed at her. Unbeknownst to P, her mother was standing right behind him.
“Hey!” She barked, completely startling him. “She is just a little girl. What is wrong with you?”
I just let the whole thing play out because P deserved to be yelled at and for once it wasn’t me doing it. I quickly shifted my attitude to one of being horrified as I looked past their legs to find a 5-year-old girl sitting in the corner, crying into her arms.
I walked over to my son and chimed in.
“Did you do this?” I asked. He was beet red.
“No,” he lied.
“Don’t lie, I saw you do it. We’ll be talking tonight.” I said in my toughest mom voice to scare him not shitless.
I looked up at the mother. “I am sooo sorry for my son’s behavior. I’ll be talking to him tonight.”
She just kinda looked at me in disgust and nodded.
Later I got to thinking about 2 things:
- What was this little girl doing playing Laser Tag anyway? This is a war zone.
- This mom really needed to tell her daughter to grow a pair. This isn’t the American Girl Doll store, this is laser tag and you need to accept you may be too young or suck at it.
After laser tag, presents and pizza we allowed the kids to play arcade games.
$20 and 30 minutes later we were ready to go home. We had just hit our breaking point and an adult meltdown was not out of the question. Just then, P’s friend J ended up winning 1,000 tickets. Fan-fucking tastic.
“Great J,” I said. “You can buy that Snickers bar you’ve had your eye on.”
Allow me to explain the ticket/game relationship. You can skip this if you’ve ever had kids, post Chuckie Cheese or been a kid during Chuckie Cheese. The same applies to Magic Mountain, Dave and Busters and any arcade that spits out tickets for prizes.
Your child takes the tickets to the “prize counter” where a bored teenager greets you with disdain. For 30 minutes, your child treats this like it’s the biggest decision of their lifetime. They go back and forth, back and forth on what they want till in your head you are screaming, ‘PICK SOMETHING!’ And here is the exchange rate….
Prize Counter Exchange Rate
- Tootsie Roll- 5 tickets
- Bouncy ball- 20 tickets
- Little army man attached to a parachute- 8 tickets
- Television- 500,000 tickets
- Chinese finger cuffs- 15 tickets
- T-shirt-500 tickets
I really don’t have an ending or something witty to say. Have you ever been to laser tag?
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