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A few months ago my friend, a most lovely and generous soul, loudly announced that she really wanted to play laser tag. She also had no desire to play with the public however, so she proceeded to tell my friend and I that she had rented the whole laser tag arena and we were going to have a good, old-fashioned bit of Christmas carnage.
I was definitely in.
Because to be honest, I am a bit of an infant. A perpetual child at heart. If there are games afoot then both of my feet are hip deep in the action. And this past Wednesday found those feet at the door of VSports Arena in downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
VSports has a few things to entice the amuse sections of your awareness with. Upstairs they have multiple VR bays, an arcade and pool table, a case and distinguished-looking fellow who has collectible cards (MTG etc.), but it was downstairs that I was interested in, for the entire basement was a neon and black light utopia of laser tagging gold.
However, it wasn't like any laser tag that I had every played. Instead of wearing a bulky vest that lit up when I was shot, instead I put on this semi-bulky headband that had lights. The guns themselves were straight out of Halo, and instead of just shooting at people, we had buttons.
Now, I am no COD player, although I have stood in the corner by the Mystery Box and cleared out zombies for people I live with, so after a couple of rounds I finally did take to the gun, but to just be handed a weapon and lectured about how you could choose from 30 different guns, all their attributes, that there was shielding and healing, etc. Well, I am pretty sure my eyes glazed over a bit.
I also knew I was in a bit of trouble, as the gaggle of teens we were with had multiple thousands of hours playing first person shooters with similar load out mechanisms under their belts.
As the first round began, I gritted my teeth and crouched in a cubby hole in our base. We were the green team. I knew the time to study my gun was limited, as my son had loudly announced, "Mom is mine!". (Apparently everyone wanted to shoot themselves a Kat, and in true death match fashion, I was the most killed in many rounds).
Thankfully my time in COD Zombie-land paid off and I started getting the hang of things.
Then I got pistol whipped.
I'm short. The shortest in our friend group. Even my friends who are women are all almost six feet tall. This makes me the butt of many a joke and adored like a feisty chihuahua. Most of the time I have no problems with my existential status, with the exception of during laser tag when my friend M swung her gun around the corner and clocked me right in the left ear. Twice.
The second time it happened, I saw stars and M bless her, between great bays of laughter, petted me like an idiotic pony who likes to run in front of trains. I might have been laughing too, as I returned to base to respawn, because all those heathens cared not that I was literally attacked and shot me in the back of the head like the degens they are.
And if you can't tell by now, I loved every minute of laser tag. We did four rounds, Two team death matches and two free for alls. Around round three I got the hang of my gun and was christened sharpshooter with the highest accuracy in the group. This of course made me an even bigger target and I had skulk around like a paparazzi at a private beach.
The two hours that we were their evaporated and before we knew it, it was time to go. Some of our group never left the VR bays, but as I have done quite a bit of VR, I was fine without delving into the simulated world. It was fun to watch my hubs play in the virtual land a bit though, and we all were giggling about his real life accessory as he shot things in imaginary zombie apocalypse land.
After we left the Arena, we walked down the block to Cricket's, a CDA comfort food restaurant institution. Plate after plate of poutine, pizza, burgers, and nachos stacked larger than a LTD hubcap adorned our table.
That is an oddly specific description. Is there another untold story buried beneath that simile?
Not particularly, but now that I think about it, there was this one time I was at the library in a neighboring town, and these kids were chasing a pony that they rode to the library who seemed determined to play chicken with an oncoming BNSF train. Maybe that's it....(The kids got the pony before it became train paint btw).
Wow, I didn't know that place existed! Any idea how long it has been there? Sounds like you had a marvelous time.
I don't think that location has been there too long. I know the people who run it used to have a place for NERF gun battles up on Gov. Way. There's so much new stuff around here I swear, and it doesn't help that I try to avoid town as much as possible, so it seems like there's beyond tons of new things when I do wander that way lol!
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