Just shoot me in the eye so I can breathe

BECK ELEVEN

Sometimes when it's really hot and sunny all you want to do is slip into a pair of overalls, throw on a stifling face mask and run like crazy with a gun.

A group of us went paintballing last weekend and of course it's the simple things that take the most time. Some of our paintballing operations lasted about 15 minutes but the choosing of teams went on for well over this time.

We were instructed to split into two teams, Americans or Germans.

It was no schnell decision but in the end we made our heavy office contingent of Brits fly the German flag while the remaining Kiwis formed a team of lean, mean, fighting Uncle Sams.

So, on an afternoon when the temperature was nearing 30 degrees Celsius, we all donned either blue or green overalls (which made us look more like a warring faction of mechanics versus plumbers) and a face mask - so we could all take home the eyes we were born with.

As an innocent first-timer, I assumed it would just be a free-for-all but we were given specific operations like re-enacting D-Day and saving poor old Private Ryan - who was looking rather worse for wear and decapitated by the time we arrived.

Co-incidentally our team was sprinkled with three female soldiers, all christened Rebecca.

First up, the Americans were tasked with storming Normandy beach-upon- McLeans-Island. Our objective was to get one of the Rebeccas close enough to lower the German flag.

The initial storming was a wake-up call, not to all the brave soldiers who faced actual death, but to my fitness level. I stormed so incredibly hard that I almost threw up inside my mask.

I was beginning to think I would gratefully take one in the eye for just a few easy-breathing maskless moments.

Somewhere amid the panic and chaos, my inner soldier stood to attention.

I stealth-ran to where a colleague was shooting from behind a pile of tyres. I crept around the edge and faced a man in overalls with a mask and curly ginger hair.

I knew it was a dear workmate who kindly offers to make me cups of tea but I shot him anyway.

In paintball-speak this is called your "first kill".

And let me assure you, being shot by a speeding paintball most definitely stings. I don't remember watching any war film in which you can hear people yelling, "Ow, ow, ow I got one, I'm out, stop it. STOP IT!"

It was later revealed that when my colleague saw me with the gun, he froze and then tried to run away.

He now has a large circular bruise between his shoulder blades. Unfortunately, he panicked and ran while I shot him in the back.

We have since been called a pair of ginger cowards.

Eventually our mini platoon of Rebeccas made it to the flag and took those nasty Germans down. By the time a truce was called, it had been an all out destruction of erogenous zones.

Lieutenant Dan took one on his right testicle and two on the left nipple. Colonel Carla got a paintball near her nethers and two of the lads got butt- cheeked.

And an important tip for the prospective lady paintballer; never stand in the line of fire (ie, don't play at all) before Cup and Show Week.

Nobody wants to turn up to the races in the delicate finery with purple circular blotches.

I've got a fading bruise on my decolletage which looks like a hickey. Maybe I could pass it off as a Purple Heart.

- © Fairfax NZ News