Assorted condiments meet Halo 4 and Feathertongue

Okay. This is the reason, in full, that I was late.

It started with tagball. My TKD (that's Tae Kwon Do) club was having a little outing, so we all went playing tagball. Tagball is like paintball, but instead of little plastic balls filled with paint you use little rubber balls. Each game has an objective. If at any point during the game you are shot, you are out. The only armor of any sort you get is a Halo-style helmet and a pouch to hold your balls, which also conveniently shields your balls. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Women got breastplates, which I thought was somewhat unfair. The gun is a simple CO2 propulsion system, with a container at the top to hold the balls. You get no free refills; if you run out of balls you have to pick more up off the floor.

The first two rounds were simple: put both teams in the maze and let them shoot each other. Sadly, those of us on the Red team were completely obliterated by the Greens. This was strange, because the colour of the Reds was actually orange, and the Greens were really yellow. But we chose to ignore this.

The second round was the DoomKey. We had to take the DoomKey to the Green's territory. If we managed this, we won. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned, but after a truly epic battle our one surviving player got the DoomKey into the bunker in the last few seconds of the game. Then it was Green's turn. We set up an excellent defensive strategy, if I do say so myself, but what we didn't count on was the enemy's sniping abilities. I was positioned behind a window, and was firing at the approaching Greens when a single shot flew all the way across the floor, though the window, and collided painfully with my hand. I was dead. Nevertheless, we still won. Later I learned that it was my brother who had fired that one shot.

Round three was Capture the Flag. Hopefully I don't have to explain how this works. In the first round the Greens charged right through, crushing all they met and taking our flag with ease. They returned to their own base triumphantly, only to discover that we had sneakily stolen their own flag in the meantime. In the second round nothing much happened. Green won, I think.

Round four: Mission Impossible. To the side of the maze was an area with a more concentrated layout, and a tiny wall separating the two. This area was called the Graveyard. A bag was hung from a hook above the wall. It was our job to retrieve the bag. But there was a twist; we could not enter the Graveyard - and the Greens couldn't leave it. Both rounds consisted of both teams hiding on opposite sides of opposing walls. No one really had any idea how to proceed. After lots of fire was exchanged we had to stop. Because neither team had come close to winning, it was decided that the winners would be decided by a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Me and my brother faced off... long story short, he won. Damn him and his scissors.

Then, the final round. This was a nasty little game called Assassins. Myself and two others were chosen to be bodyguards for Rob, a horned skull on a pylon. Our job was to protect Rob. If anyone kicked Rob over, we lost. Fortunately, the three of us were INVINCIBLE and could not die, no matter how many times we were shot. So we went and put Rob in a bunker, and were confined to a wide-open space in front of it. We had no cover at all. Now, what's interesting about this is that while we were gone there was a sudden change of rules. Instead of trying to kick over Rob, the new objective was to shoot the bodyguards as much as possible. And so it began. Before we knew what had happened there were shots flying everywhere. At close range too, so these really stung. We fought back hard and took out more than a few, but what do you know! Another spontaneous rule change. It turns out the Assassins could come back from the dead by running to the Graveyard. At first it seemed we were doing all right, but then the shots began to rain down thicker and faster; I took many shots all across the torso, more than one of which is still sore. One ball bounced off my chin, knocking my head back, then seven or eight more cracked against my neck. Beaten, annoyed and running low on balls, I gave up trying to dodge shots and stood at the entrance giving them everything I had. Then a stray shot smashed into my thumb and I dropped my weapon, unable to feel my hand. It was lucky for me the game ended just then.

In a word: OW. But in a good way, you know?

Then we went to dinner. There was a Chinese buffet almost directly across the street that it took us twenty minutes to find. Since I had forgotten to eat lunch (again) I welcomed the opportunity to stuff myself. Yet the whole time I felt horrible; a combination of hunger, cramps, a bit of trapped gas and the fact that I had been shot at least twelve times in the stomach contributed to my feelings of unwellness. Despite that, I still managed to choke down a reasonable-sized meal.

The problems began when Jason found a piece of jello on the bathroom floor and tossed it over a bathroom stall, where on the other side Matt was sitting on the toilet. This led to the Jello Wars, mostly involving gelatin. Somehow this little escapade led to someone trying to discover how much salt could be dissolved in a glass of water. After pouring a considerable amount of salt into it, we ended up passing the glass around the table and having a sip of the now-salty water. I was the only one who liked it. More salt was added. Then someone suggested soy sauce. The sauce was added, along with pepper, sugar, and purple ice cream. No one knew what flavor it was. Then we all passed it around again and had a sip. I was the only one who liked it. Then more ice cream was added, along with ketchup, hot sauce and wasabi. Only the very brave tried this new concoction. The drink became known as the Kamiccino, short for Kamikaze Cappuccino. It was also briefly called the CondimentQuake, the Cappuccino Surprise, or the Black Belt Excellence Special.

Anyway, that's why I was late. Because that has something to do with my lateness... or something.