I Was A Child Soldier In The Laser Wars Of 2001

Laser tag ruled as a kid, and it still does. It's like you're dropping with the boys in a real life Call Of Duty video game. When I was younger, going to the mall with my neighborhood friends to play laser tag was the best. After laser tagging for the first time in 20 years for this video, I'm wondering why I ever stopped? 

There was no better place than X-Site. This place made you print your own laser tag ID card to carry around. Little Vibbsy wasn't even big enough to stand in front of the camera without help from his dad, but I thought I was the hardest human being on the planet picking the name Warfang. 

I don't think there is really any skill in laser tag, you just have to be willing to run around more than other people. Shocker, no one really cares about laser tag, so I was able to rack up the points. That doesn't mean the United States military won't see this video and cryogenically freeze me to be a super soldier in the Laser Wars of 2089, but I take no pride in being the best laser tagger in the office. 

Laser Tag might not be as impressive as dunking a basketball, throwing a 100 mph fastball, or destroying a QB on an A-Gap blitz, but maybe on day this will be an olympic sport. I've been watching air pistol events, and air pistol might be a more ridiculous event than laser tag. Laser tag at least has team strategy and endurance, meanwhile both sports require accuracy and ridiculous outfits. The laser tag pack technology hasn't gotten better over the years, but the crazy steampunk eyewear in air pistol is even more ridiculous. 

Maybe I quit laser tagging because going as an adult with a bunch of random people where 80% are twelve year old kids would be lame. When my friends and I would go to X-Site back in the day, there was a 40 year old dude who would show up to laser tag every weekend wearing all black and a shirt with a wild black stallion on it. This man would dominate everyone. Granted, Pony Man (as we called him) would climb on walls and push kids out of his way. Pony man was the definition of a hardo. 

You either stop laser tagging as a kid, or live long enough to see yourself become Pony Man. 

We are all comfortable with each other in this video, so running around like crazy people and calling each other mother fuckers was fair game. If we acted the way we did at a regular spot, we probably would been thrown in jail (like Pony Man should have been.) Renting out a place so you can play with a large group of people you know is a rare situation, but it absolutely kicked ass, even as a grown adult. 

While I'm worried I've become what my friends and I hated, being Pony Man for a day couldn't have been more fun.