"Over Here, we'll hide behind these trees and wait," my friend whispered. "No, we need to move up closer," I replied. So we headed over behind the closest trees to the enemy's position and waited in the broad, dark green bushes. I heard footsteps approaching, but I stayed quiet so I would not give away my position. It felt like a million years. Then, at just the right time I fired. "Ouch!" I heard a scream and felt a great sense of accomplishment. This was the culmination of a long and boring week consisting of sitting in school. We were as excited as a bunch of kids on the way to the candy store. We had been waiting all week for this event, the prestigious airsoft gun war.

It all started in 5th grade when one of the neighborhood boys received an airsoft pellet gun for Christmas. We started off practicing by shooting soda cans which evolved into stop signs which evolved into each other. I would imagine that this hurt a great deal, but at that time we didn't have the slightest care in the world. We were just young boys around the age of 11-12 trying to find fun new games to play. So, some of us invented this awesome new game. To us, it seemed like the greatest scientific breakthrough of the 21st century. It was extremely complex with many rules and regulations. The people who did not yet have airsoft guns had gigantic sticks they ran around with and whipped people with. The object of the game was basically to make the other person quit. This was not a good idea because someone would always end up hurt or upset. We called this new game "Rage" and it was the coolest thing to do after a tedious school day of being harassed by teachers. The object was basically to see who could take the most pain without giving up. It does not bode well for my intelligence to admit that I agreed to play this with a mere stick to whip people with. Looking back on it, I am surprised no one lost an eyeball among other things.

Still, thing got better. I got my very own airsoft for Christmas when I was 12. It was powered by CO2 and I now had one of the most powerful guns in the group. I was so excited I just couldn't wait to use it, that night I was practicing shooting my fence in the backyard. Pretty soon, my backyard was covered with these little biodegradable green bullets. Before we knew it, we all had our own guns and we would have full on wars with them nearly every weekend, we thought we were like real soldiers in Vietnam or World War 2. My brother even got one so he would come play with us. We didn't care that he was younger, if he had an airsoft gun he was cool with us. The place to hold these events was at the Reichel's house because they had a huge backyard next to an empty lot. On one side of his backyard there was the empty lot that was about half a block long, and on the other side was an abandoned house with a smaller backyard. We set up chairs and tables throughout the backyard to use a cover. On top of that, there were several trees and bushes in the big green backyard that were able to hide our tiny bodies as we looked for people to shoot. I vividly remember walking in as if we were preparing to go to war; we would quickly split up into teams and then it was game on. We would get so carried away that we would forget to go in for lunch. We could do whatever we wanted because, at this time in our lives, we had little commitments or responsibilities. Weekends and summers throughout middle school were endless and care-free. It seemed like we had all the time in the world to run around and just be kids.

I had many "things" throughout my childhood that impacted me but this one stands out as the best. It is an item that symbolizes my childhood as one of roughhousing and games that would last all day. It is almost sad to see the evolution of us being kids to becoming young adults swamped with responsibilities, but it is also a cool thing that I get to experience this transformation with the same friends I began it with. "That Thing" left me with many welts, bruises, and scrapes, but, more importantly, it has left me with childhood memories that will last a lifetime.