Thorns, Roots, and Scotch-Taped Knees (Charlie)

This story is about a day last June when a bunch of us guys went over to Brian Awalt’s house for his birthday party; me, Brian himself, Cooper, Jared, Gordon, Nick, and Raymond Maddox. Many things happened that day, night, and morning (we barely slept). We ate, fought, played video games, and swam (Jared and Cooper almost got electrocuted by Nick in a hot tub).
The day started with all of us showing up in ones and twos. We began by shooting around on an eight foot rim, barely playing defense, and trash talking (the usual: “You might have gotten two inches of air on that” or the like). Since I was one of the taller ones, I had no trouble dunking. We then migrated over to the pool area, where I read instead of going swimming. In case if you didn’t guess, I hate swimming. Not because I’m bad at it; but because every time I swim in water colder than 80 degrees I feel like I’m getting hypothermia. After that, all of us guys got in the hot tub, which I can stand to be in. Our total size seemed to exceed the acceptable, and half the water in the tub ended up on the ground outside. (Note: later, Cooper told me a story. He and Jared were hanging out in the hot tub, alone, and Nick came over and tried to turn on the radio. Somehow, he managed to damage the hot tub and nearly electrocute Cooper and Jared).
To pass the time, we we went into the basement and played video games. Once there, some of the guys fired up MLB 2K 11.
After a few minutes of watching, I asked, “Can I play?”
Brian let me take his spot against Gordon, and it turned out that I was an excellent pitcher. I beat Gordon in my first time ever playing that game.
Then the pizza arrived. Each of us fell on it like vultures, decimating a pizza in the first few minutes. The soda bottles emptied quick, too.
Next, I’ll talk about the most dangerous thing of all; an airsoft gun war at 1:00 in the morning. It started slow and easy. We traded guns, divided into teams, and set off into separate directions. Hills, rocks, and trees surrounded us, and it was near impossible to see, even with a bright moon. Things got interesting, though, when my team encountered the other. My team began pursuit, and we split up. Of course, none of us could have tracked a bulldozer in broad daylight, let alone several people in the dark. The “chase” developed into all of us walking around, trying not to shoot people on our own team. That doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy ourselves. Few things are more fun than trying to shoot someone else in the dark.
About a half hour after we had started I was walking by a deep ditch that was beside the dirt road I was walking on. As I was reloading, I heard a rustling from the ditch. Curious, I didn’t shoot (actually, I couldn’t see anything in the ditch and didn’t want to look like an idiot). Out crawled Cooper, covered in scratches. Running, he had fallen down the ditch into a group of thorn-bushes. Even though we were on different teams, neither one of us shot one another. Probably because I was laughing and couldn’t aim.
The second injury happened a short time later. Our teams had reformed into two clear groups, and my team was in pursuit. We chased them across a field, and just as they reached the cover of a tree, Gordon tripped. Diving behind the tree, he smashed his knee onto a big, thick root. This paused the game; we let a hobbling Gordon and his team walk back to the house.
You would think that after two injuries during the airsoft gun wars, we would have just gone inside and slept. But no; a couple hours later, we were out doing the exact same thing. That was when our third (and thankfully final) injury occurred.
I was running after someone yet again (actually, I don’t think I was ever chased myself). While running on a dirt path, I slipped on some loose gravel and fell. Stopping my fall with by hands and knees, I didn’t even think I got cut. Minutes later, I was walking outside a garage with floodlights, and saw blood staining my knees and my shins. As I examined myself in the dim light, I found blood across my knuckles, too. Since it didn’t hurt, I didn’t go inside for a while. When I did, I found that band-aids could only do so much. As a quick fix, I wrapped my knees in Scotch tape. Looking back, probably not the best idea. It held up, but ripped off half the hair on my legs.
After we settled down inside with tired legs, scratches, and bruises, some people boxed while the others played Xbox. I boxed Brian, and won. Some other matches were Cooper and Gordon, and Brian and Gordon. Since we boxed with big, foamy, green Hulk gloves, we didn’t get hurt. Except Cooper, who seemed to have the worst luck of anyone there. When he got punched, the hard plastic handle in the glove popped out and hit him in the eye. I played Ping Pong, which I seemed to be the best at. Cooper, Brian, and Nick were pretty good, though.
Within the next few hours, several of us fell in and out of sleep. Nick and Brian were the first to go, and then I realized how exhausted I was. I had been up for almost a full day, so it wasn’t hard to go to sleep. I remember trying to keep my eyes open and talk, but it seemed that the harder I tried to keep them open, the faster I fell asleep. Almost everyone fell asleep at one time or another, until we were called upstairs for breakfast.
I wandered through the morning in a daze. I could barely follow a conversation, and I talked even less than usual. That morning there were no airsoft guns or boxing; I just tried to collect all the stuff I had left around the house. We left the same way we arrived, in ones and twos over a few hours. As soon as my dad arrived to pick me up, I dozed in the car. I was too exhausted to do anything else.
That was probably the best birthday party I had ever been to. We had a ton of fun, ate great food, and I think we can all say that it was overall an excellent night.