I had never been paint-balling before in my life so I didn't know what to expect other than you shoot the paint balls at each other and the last man standing is the winner. He told me to ask some of my friends if they wanted to join us. I asked a few people and most of them said they would like to go, but in the end only one of them actually ended up going with us. The thing is that everyone kept telling me that when you get hit by a paint ball it hurts like crazy. One guy asked me if my brother and I ever had wars and shot each other with BB guns when were little. I told him that, no, I've never shot or been shot by my brother with a BB gun. I don't know but I think that if I ever shot my brother with a BB gun on purpose my mother would beat the hell out of me with the arm-rest of a rocking chair. I think I could have gotten away with shooting my cousin with a BB gun though because I could outrun his mom and his dad would probably shoot him again for getting shot in the first place - that's just the way my uncle is. He's from Texas so his holy trinity is guns, bar-b-q and the Dallas Cowboys.

The image of me being shot over and over by a high-powered BB-gun kept playing in my head, so by the end of the week I felt as if it might not be such a good idea to go paint balling afterall. I had this idea in my mind that I was going to go paint-balling and get hit right on my ear and go deaf, or get hit in the eye and go blind, or worse - get hit on the side of my head forcing a big chunk of skull at my temple into my brain, killing me instantly. I was going to look on the internet to see how many people had actually died playing paintball, but figured it would be better not to know.

As I went to buy the paint balls I saw some Star Wars figures that I wanted and tried to convince myself that maybe it was fate that I found the figures so I could spend the money on them and not buy the paintballs. If I didn't have the paint balls then I couldn't go and I wouldn't get hit in the temple and die with pink paint splattered all over the side of my head. I really wanted the Star Wars figures because I'm pretty geeky, but I wasn't going to flake out on my friend, so I bought the paintballs and left the figures.

The next morning I woke up early and got ready. It seemed like it was going to be a nice day…a nice day to die paint balling. When I got to the meeting place I asked my friend Dave, "You thought I was going to flake out, didn't you?"

He answered with, "Yes, to be honest with you. I did." Contrary to what my friend Tamika says, I don't flake out or stand people up, at least not that I can remember off the top of my head. My friend, Dave passed out the guns and face masks and gave us the rules, "Try not to shoot at the head or at the crotch area." He said that even if you don't try to shoot at those areas there's still a chance you might get hit there because sometimes the air carries the paint ball.

"Is this going to hurt?" I asked, still thinking about getting shot with a high-powered BB-gun.

Dave's brother looked at me and asked, "You want me to shoot you so you can feel it and get it over with?" then he points his gun at me.

"No!" I jump away from him. "No, I don't want you to shoot me. Are you frakin' crazy?"

We break up into teams and start the first round. I'm walking through the bushes when all of a sudden I hear the sound of paint ball guns firing and then I hear my friend Chris yell a scream that sounded like a little girl yelling followed by words "you got me in the balls…oh, my balls…my balls…"

I'm thinking to myself, "that doesn't sound good at all." I turn around and see my friend Dave who starts shooting at me, hitting me on the left shoulder. "I'm hit!" I yell as I hold my gun up letting everyone know I'm out for the round. I look down at my pink splattered wound. "That didn't hurt much at all" I say out loud with a big smile on my face, "As a matter of fact, it kinda felt good." I feel like a manly man now because I've been shot with a paint ball and I survived. I want to yell at Dave and all my friends. "Sir! I love the pain! Give me more pain sir!" I don't yell that though because they think I'm weird enough already.

It's at this point when I see my friend Chris come out from hiding looking down at his jeans. The pink paint splatter is in a spot I would not want to be hit. "Oh my balls…you got me on the balls." He says to Dave then looks at me and says, "Dave just reached up and pointed the gun down over the bush and fired hitting me in the balls. Oh my balls…"

"Yeah, I say, " trying not to look at Chris' wound because it's just not right for one guy to stare at another guy's crotch especially when it's splattered pink. "Dave has the advantage because he's so tall. He can just reach over bushes and small trees."

Once we were all eliminated and one man was standing, we regrouped and started the next round. I was crouched behind a tree when all of a sudden someone's cell phone goes off. I think to myself, "who's the dummy that forgot to turn off their cell phone?" then I realize that it's my phone that is ringing. I picked it up and whispered, "I'll call you back" then hung up. Later I would see that whoever called me had blocked the number so I had no idea who to call. I walked out from behind the tree when all I saw were what seemed to be thousands of paint balls flying toward me. I know it wasn't really thousands of paint balls but at the time that's what it seemed like. I was ambushed by my friends who were all more than happy to inflict pain and splatter me with multi-colored paint.

I called one of my friends who had flaked out on me and left the following message:

Martin, where are you? I need you man. I have a bad feeling about this. There are hostiles all around me. I'm taking on heavy enemy fire. I don't think I'm going to make it out of this one. They'll be no escape for me this time. I need you to do one thing for me, make sure that my nephew and niece have a good Christmas – remember they like Star Wars toys and there's some really cool figures at Wal-Mart that you can buy if you hurry.