When my brother and I were growing up, we kind of invented the best game ever, NERF WAR!

Now it wasn’t necessary to have the ultra-expensive nerf GUNS to play this game, any foam football or playground or inflatable ball would do.

Basically, the entire game was running around in the yard pummeling the hell out of each other (and all the other kids) all day.

See, my mom was kind of the neighborhood babysitter, and even the kids she didn’t watch for money were always at our house to play outside.  So we always had a stash of balls to choose from.

The rules of the game were simple:

1. You can only use your weapon (ball).  No touching, kicking, etc, balls lying on the ground.

2. You can only attack someone who is armed.

3. No ganging up on someone, nor “guarding” their weapon (ball lying on ground) and waiting for them to go to pick it up and then nailing them.

4. Stay in the yard.

With these simple rules in place, we had the most fun ever, running dodging and smacking the hell out of each other with foam/inflatable balls.  Nerf footballs were the most versatile of the bunch, but I had my favorite, a medium sized pinkish marbled playball that stung if you threw it hard enough.  The blue Nerf Football was also a good choice when I wanted more accuracy, but only one weapon per person.

Anyway, as kids will be kids, I quickly developed this ‘uncanny ability’ or if you want to call it, a destructive aim to (not on purpose, I swear!) nail my brother in the balls.  Let me just say that “center mass” was the juiciest target, and maybe I subconsciously left my release a little late.

So the ball would fly true, and smack him right in the cojones, and he’d crumple to the ground with tears forming in his eyes.  Then I’d run.  Because as soon as he recovered enough, he was after me to chase me down and get some payback, of the hitting kind.  So he’d run me down, and I’d cringe/hunch over, knowing what was coming, and he’d THUMP! me right in the back.

Decades later and my brother has three gorgeous kids, which my sister-in-law says are a miracle because of all the hits my brother took to the groin.  But could claim I was just killing all the ugly kid making swimmy cells.  Seriously, these kids are C-U-T-E.

I kind of want to introduce the kids to the joys of “NERF War” soon, but I think it can wait until I buy a cup.