Ryan's Bachelor Party

What? What’s that? You want to eat my Star trooper? Wow – I feel good. Nurse, I love you. You are awesome. Why can’t she talk properly? Stop mumbling. Maybe she is a special nurse, for special cases? Am I special? But I don’t understand why am I special? Oh kak, I am brain damaged! Geez like it I am hungry…Ooh – look how soft this cotton wool is!

Morphine is awesome.

Its early morning on what promises to be an epic bachelors party. I hit the meeting point an hour late and the guys already have Ryan running up and down Rivonia road dressed in a pink tutu and a lacey brazier. Proudly displaying a little sign board on his chest of what he would do for money as the cars were handing over the cash for a nipple flash, butt cheek rub or the wedding tackle display cabinet. He made a fortune.

A short while later we all climbed into the mini bus that would be taking us to an adventure farm just outside of Johannesburg. Paintball, go cart racing, climbing and all sorts. A few bottles of tequila on the way there, a quick side-of-the-freeway chundah for the Ginger and we arrived at our destination.

Now unfortunately for you, my dear reader, what happens at a bachelor party stays at the bachelor party. Only the guys privileged to be part of the group get to hold onto those kinds of mental photographs. So I can’t tell you about the boozy nights, bar fights and disco lights. I can’t tell you about the mad amount of strippers, foam and leather tassels. I can’t tell you any of this because “I wasn’t there”. No seriously, I wouldn’t know, because I was in hospital. By 13:00.

Around 11am it was the third round of paintball. I have always believed if you are going to play paintball then do it properly. No shirt, two shots for a kill. Nothing frustrates me more than some geek knob shiner loaded up with body armor and a gazillion rounds per minute sniper explosive combat gun and they believe they are hot shit. You’re not. You all shine knobs. If the shot doesn’t hurt then it removes a massive part of the experience. May as well throw water balloons at each other as a precursor to your Barbie doll tea party. Anyway, this group met me half way. Shirts on but two shots to kill.

Round 3. We headed into the arena, shot George in the ass for a practice shot (George was KO on the ground) and headed to our team huddle. Right, standard V formation with the pivot at the back leading the flanks up the sides. Good. I was left center so that between the left flank and the pivot position. My roll there is to ensure the flank moves through and up the side as quickly as he can by taking most of the attention from the enemy. Easy – just get shot at basically.

So here we go. A few bottles of tequila and a mountain of beers down as we head out into the obstacles and took cover. Fitttt fittt fittt as we land a few shots at the enemy to pin them down and wizz zipp wizzz as their return fire comes flaming past my face. I hear the pivot call for us to move up; I press the cover fire and shout for my flank. He legs it. Moving along well here. Up one set. Pivot, again, shouts for me to move up so I turn to my flank to make sure he has me covered. “You got me?” I shout through my misted up face mask, “Yeah” he shouts back and I hop up and head forward.

Just a few meters before my next cover position two enemy shooters pop up from behind their cover and start flicking those triggers in an epileptic fit style frenzy. I got to get back; I won’t make the forward position. Smack! Ah ass that hurt! I took a shot to my neck as I am running now backwards trying to lay return fire on them. I looked to my left for my cover flanker and he was just throwing chundah. No help. I was in full retreat, firing off shots, when my world flipped upside down. No idea why but I lost my legs, I went over still firing rounds off as the ground turned to sky and I was air born for a moment. DOFF! I landed on the side of my head followed by a sensation I can only explain as how I imagine dry timber feels when you snap it and then throw it into the fire.

I lay there; legs above my head and put my gun up to surrender. The other Ginger there, through all his Ginger fury, took advantage of this and fired round after round at the only body part sticking out of the ground. My legs.

After the fun of free shooting practice ended they dragged me out of the hole and realised it was a bit more serious than a few beers. I remember looking up at Ryan and saying “it’s broken dude, hospital time” followed by a lengthily group discussion about how it’s not broken it’s only dislocated. Apparently the sheered bone in my neck wasn’t evidence enough. It hurt like hell. Ryan strapped me up and loaded me into a bakkie – hospital bound. I had a few beers on the way to help with the pain and they dropped my stinking, ragged drunken ass off at the casualties.

What followed was 6 hours without pain medication, a banging hangover, grinding stone collar bone and a whole whack of seriously confused nurses. Covered in Cheetah type markings, seeping bruises from the paintball shots, drenched in beer, dressed in overalls and bits of wors roll in my teeth they left me there for hours and hours unattended. Maybe that is why they gave me morphine, as like a “Our bad Dude – Here have some of the good stuff”

The surgery went poorly, the scar looks shocking and my paintball tactics have changed for ever. Next time I’m just going to do what George does. Pass out, take a few liberty shots when unconscious and then wake up in a fury and just start shooting at random people in Hulk mode.