Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

Getting Old

My husband, Jack, is younger than me.  Yes, I robbed the cradle.  So what?  You lost.

I took my exchange students paintballing. (I got a miracle deal, 90% OFF.  They are not offering those anymore, by the way.)  And I talked him into going.  After all, I would be playing too, right? And he is younger than I.

So we drive up to the place with 10 eager exchange students and 1 other host dad, Nic, who used to be military.  Jack also has some experience with guns; he used to hunt, but now all he does is target practice.  There are 2 men, 2 boys and 9 girls.  I mean, 8 girls and one old lady.  (me)  While we were registering everybody, I remarked that I usually take everyone horseback riding in the mountains.  Jack suggested that we do both at the same time next year.

(Imagine it...first time riders on a horse that gets hit...not gonna happen.)

We divide up into teams for the first game.  I got hit almost first and get to stand and watch everyone else.  For the next games, we made sure that Jack and Nic were not on the same team by making them team captains.  And yes, I got chosen last, just like in elmentary school.

We take each other on in different playing fields, like storming the castle, hiding behind banks of tires, etc.  Great fun!  My one high point of the day was seeing 3 girls on the other team with their back to me, not very far away.  I hit each of the 3 girls with a total of 3 (count them! 3) shots.  Then I got hit and I was out too.  Another time I actually pinned Nic (ex-military, remember?!) down behind a barrier so that he was unable to poke his head and gun out and shoot anyone...I am really proud of that one, even though someone snuck up on me from behind and hit me and I was out.  I think I may have hit one other person the whole time, but mostly I got hit right away and got out and got to watch. Once I got hit in the back of my head as I was surrendering.  Annoying.  I am blaming Jack.

The girls poop out first (they don't generally like hot, tired and dirty), and the guys used up the rest of the ammunition in a free for all.  They loved it.

The paintball fields and are in the desert, in the sagebrush and tumbleweeds and rocks and everything.  They do not level the playing field.  In fact, they have dug more trenches to make it more fun to play.  At one point, Jack was running to cover and tripped over a baby tumbleweed and went down hard on his left quadriceps.  He had the presence of mind to lift the paintball gun up and keep the muzzle out of the sand.  And then he got up right away and kept playing at his usual speed, which is hard and fast.

We compared bruises.  They were more colorful, though, the next day, and we showed them off again at a going away party for one of the girls.  Jack didn't have the best bruise, but he had the most that were really gory looking.  The one that hurt the most, he says, was on his knuckles, where there was no padding.  That one actually bled, another bragging point.  (for a guy, anyway)

That was also the day that Jack's left quadriceps began hurting.  By evening, he called a friend to borrow a cane.  It kept getting worse even with the cane, and people began talking about friends and relatives who had torn ligaments and such.  So he went to the doctor on Thursday, and found out it was most likely micro-tears in the muscle and it would get better, and if it didn't in a week or two, come back.

I love paying money for that kind of advice.

It started getting better the next day.

Anyway, five weeks later he is off the cane and doing things almost normally.  Well, maybe except for the noon fast walk with co-workers, but they may not do that either because temperatures are going to be in triple digits this week.  He even ran across the yard last night.  He will probably not go on all days hikes in the mountains for a while.

He says he is not going paintballing again with kids 4 decades younger than him.

I will, though, even though I am older than him.

posted by Marion @ 12:32 PM