Thoughtless for the Day

It's rarely that I endorse a product, especially one made in China, but you folks really need to get your hands on a Nerf Maverick Rev-6 as quickly as possible, as in:STOP READING THIS; DRIVE TO THE TOY STORE AND PURCHASE ONE. Because the Nerf Maverick Rev-6 has changed my life in ways I never dreamed possible.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon thinking about how stressful my job is when...

Yes, I'm familiar with the economic concept of Increasing (occasionally known as "Proportional") Misery, which is to say that I'm fully aware of the fact that the man or woman who made my Maverick Rev-6 in a dimly lit and poorly ventilated Chinese factory has a much more stressful job than I do...and no office. I'm also conscience of the fact that my job is less stressful than the one my father held (his foot was broken in the steel mill in which he worked); that my father's job was less stressful than my grandfather's gig (he lost a finger working in a paper mill [insert deep paper-cut joke here]); which was, in turn, less stressful than the job my great-grandfather held (he was a blacksmith who was killed when another blacksmith hurled a red-hot bolt at someone who had offended
him, missed, and struck great-granddad. Blacksmith-on-Blacksmith crime is tearing the community apart). Essentially, I'm dealing with a lot of guilt here, but I'd trade stress for guilt any day.

So, I'm sitting in my spacious office thinking about how stressful my job is. And then I was thinking about job stress in general. Next I was thinking about the phenomenon of "Going Postal", which led me to consider various accepted methods of stress reduction, which led me to reject all of the currently accepted methods of stress reduction, which led me directly to the Nerf website, and, eventually, to the nearest KB Toys where I plopped down $10 for Nerf Maverick Rev-6. I spent the weekend shooting at the television, ala Elvis. It felt good. It felt really good {what can I say, Torchwood just hasn't lived up to all the hype].

By 9:15 AM on Monday morning I was giddily firing suction cup-tipped foam bullets from my gun, which I christened "Dr. Benway" and decorated with William S. Burroughs stickers (I'm pretty sure that nobody I work with gets the joke), down the hallway of my place of employment and over the heads of my coworkers. I hadn't felt so stress-free in work for months.

Anyone who has ever read Dr. Seuss' Butter Battle Book (be sure to read the one-star reviews) already knows what happened next...

The guy in the office across the hall bought a Neft Longshot CS-6: which is, in essence, a long-range Nerf rifle complete with scope, folding bipod, and an adjustable stock. It's the sort of toy gun that the Beltway Sniper would love. The arms race was escalating, so I stocked up on "whistle tipped" bullets.

Does this make for a quiet work environment? Hell no. But neither does people slamming doors and shouting "I'll kick your fuckin' screen in" at their laptops. Has anyone complained about the OK Corral-style shootouts in corridors? Well, one guy over on the other wing did ask us if we could "keep it down just a little". We explained that, to our knowledge, Nerf doesn't make silencers. That didn't help matters, so we bought him a Secret Strike AS-1, because until you've uttered the words "Cover me, I'm going for coffee" or fought your way, inch-by-inch, to the nearest networked printer, you haven't really lived.

"Lesson Learned: " While many people condemn toy guns (and if I had a kid, I'm honestly not sure how I'd feel about him or her owning one), the results of my little experiment have left me fairly confident
that if a certain blacksmith had owned a Nerf gun, my great-grandfather would've lived to a ripe old age.