Game’s Over, You lose.

I’m a good person. So is my friend Cantey. I mean, we both go out of our way to be nice to people. But we all have our faults, our crosses to bear. For us, we like playing laser tag. Like really really like playing laser tag. More than the average 30 something should like. And we never intend to be assholes while we play, but there you go. We are laser tag assholes.

There’s a cool breeze blowing in Glendale. Our hearts are beating like warriors when Cantey and I dip out of work and head on the 134 toward Laser Zone. When we get there, the pimpled teenaged dude in charge of taking tickets allows us to join a game already in session. Cantey and I get strapped up in gear aged with the sweat of warriors who have gone before. We masterfully choose our guns. The ticket taker tells us before we run in that “there’s a bunch of kids” already in the maze, making Cantey and I a 2 person team of awesomeness on our own. Which is fine because we use short hand when it comes to playing.

Going by the names of Photon and Vortex, we strategize briefly before running into the pitch-black laser tag maze. The electronic music of Daft Punk courses through our veins while we maneuver through the second level of the laser tag maze. As our eyes adjust to the darkness, we begin to see the outline of our opponents and their glow in the dark guns. While Cantey I hide and run, somersaulting like Macguyver in order to miss the shots fired at us, we sadly take notice that our opponents are not into this game at all. And as much as I obnoxiously try to charge up our little nemeses with cries of “that’s not how you play, you PUSSY!” and “Give us a real game, dudes!” and worse yet, when I scream at the one who came up behind me to “keep your hands off, pervert,” they just won’t get pumped enough to shoot back at us. These kids just don’t seem energized, which only eggs Cantey and me on. They aren’t strategizing, they aren’t yelling, they aren’t running and they certainly are not fun to play with.

After Cantey and I totally blow them away, we haughtily walk out to the scoreboard to see how badly we have obliterated our opponents. The kids walk up behind us silently, probably ashamed of their dismal display of athleticism. I turn around and take a look at them for the first time under fluorescent lights. And it registers like a kick in my stomach. These kids are special.

In a very special special way.

I quickly turn to nudge Cantey, but he has already figured it out. We look over at the parents of the kids, who look none too pleased. Our faces red with shame, we scuttle out the front door. In a curbside confessional, Chris and I wrack our brains. Should we go back in and apologize? Should we just bury our shame and leave? Before the question can be answered, the group of kids and their parents walk out of the front doors toward us. Chris and I keep looking at each other, too embarrassed to turn our heads toward them. We do however overhear one of the parents say to their child, “You were just a target in there.” Ugh, Gut punch.

Cantey and I convince each other that the kids had fun while they were playing. We even think that one of them maybe thought that they had won the game. While putting out a craigslist apology or even following the kids’ mini-van to their house in order to say sorry seem like an option, I don’t do anything but get in my Saturn and feel like crap. I haven’t played laser tag lately. I keep to mostly to nerf gun wars at the office, where I know that my opponents deserve to be shot in the face.