Paint Ball

My favorite young neighbor, a college student, has been arranging a party for her boyfriend:  a paintball party. Is that a generational thing?  I can’t imagine any circumstance whereby getting shot with paint could be considered fun.  Either  you’re going to roast in icky clothes or you’re going to get paint in your hair.  Not my idea for a par-TAY, but hey…as long as they’re not asking me to do the laundry, it’s okay with me.

This is eastern Carolina, real gun territory.   The NRA probably pickets paintball parties around here.

There is only one paintball palace (I don’t know what they’re really called) in this area, so Young Neighbor went out to look the place over and meet the owner, then finalized the arrangements by phone. Even though she’s a born ‘n bred Tarheel herself, she had trouble with his speech pattern and wanted to be able to write down what she heard so that she could translate it to herself.

“Youwon’t bea needinthaa-at, bu-utcha mightwant  oneertwo ofthem,”

One thing she did understand:  the package price included a keg of beer.

“My fiance doesn’t drink,” she told him, “and most of his friends and family don’t drink, so they will not need the keg.  I understand that it’s included in the price and that’s fine.  They  just won’t need it.”

“Holdonamee-en-ute,” he told her, but even though he tried to cover the mouthpiece  she could hear the exhuberance in his muffled voice as he called out, “Hey, EARL!  Younme getthaWHOLE keg ontha 17th!”

Then back into the phone with his business voice, “I’m ba-ack.”

If you’re on the North Carolina coast and are choosing a date for a paintball party,  you might want to take a pass on the 18th.  The setup might be a little lax that day.