A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Being Hunted

There are few things I hate more than spending time in nature, but guns and getting dirty happen to be two of them. So last week, when my communications teacher announced we would be going paintballing, I knew it was bound to be an absolute nightmare. Did he really expect me to wear recycled camouflage and subject myself to rolling around in the mud and being shot at? Yeah, not happening. Why someone would ever think that taking a group of 40 girls paintballing is a good idea is truly beyond me. They really do do things differently here.

Pretty Princesses 

When the time came for our 8:45am departure, I was still drunk from the night before and was in surprisingly good spirits. This lasted approximately 8 minutes. We pulled into what I can only assume is the European version of a trailer park and were met by a large bald man on a four wheeler. The whole thing reminded me of my summers in rural Maine. I was under the impression that hicks were unique to America, but apparently they breed such gems in Western Denmark, too. Baldy led us to a rack of camouflage onesies and told us to find one that fit. The suit I ended up with would have comfortably fit a Patriot's linebacker, and did not have any protective padding. Super! I tried to style the look a little bit by using my ammo belt to cinch the waist (#vogueproblems), but I got yelled at for wearing it wrong. Clearly they are not familiar with high fashion in Ebeltofft.

My teacher is clinically insane, but at least he has nice muscles

Once we all looked sufficiently homely, 4-wheeler Bob ushered us onto the course. It was muddy, wet and covered with enormous alien slugs. My personal hell. Bob split us into two teams and attempted to explain the rules. I ignored him and tried to figure out the where the best place would be to sit in fetal position until the 20 minute game was over. When Bob honked his horn to mark the start of the game , we all took off running. To our respective hiding places. Of course, no one had any intention of actually playing the game (I'm pretty sure it was some sort of "capture the flag" thing -- but I barely understood that game before there were guns involved). We just wanted to survive. (Yes, it was really that dramatic). Within the first 40 seconds, I tripped and spilled all of my ammo. So at that point, not only was I uncoordinated and hungover, but I was unarmed. I found a promising looking stack of tires and posted up, refusing to open my eyes until the game was over. I know I sound like a total baby, but in my defense everyone had the same idea, and we were actually arguing over the prime hiding spots. The only person who was actually into it was our teacher. At one point, I looked over and this guy was shooting at me from up in a tree. Are you kidding me? At least he waited until Add-Drop was over, tricky bastard.



By some stroke of miracle, I survived round one. We went back up to the safe zone, thinking it was over, when they announced that Teacher had been kind enough to pay for more paintballs so we could play another round. Surprise! This guy is a serious sicko. After the horn blew, I lasted 2 and a half more minutes before I was throwing my gun down in tears and storming off the course. It was bound to happen. Teacher fired four shots into my back from 8 feet away. Effing sadist. 


Surprisingly, I was one of only two girls who quit mid-battle. The other girl had a nosebleed and was concerned that she had broken her tooth. Seriously -- what kind of school subjects its students to this stuff? We watched the rest of the game from the back of Bob's 4-wheeler, nursing our battle wounds and PTSD. At least he offered us beer.


Final score: Paintball-1 Zo-0