The Laser Quest birthday party

This past weekend, we held my son’s seventh birthday party at Laser Quest in Kitchener. Although my son was naturally excited to have his friends at his party, for weeks he had made it clear that he really wanted me to play in the laser games.

Before we were allowed into the urban laser warzone, each of us had to pick our codenames. With varying degrees of thought and originality, our band of warriors became: Yourself, Sonic, Princess, Zack, Smiley, Hulk, Ironman and Arceus. I chose the codename “Hawkeye” for no reason whatsoever.

My son, “Hulk,” insisted that the two of us team up and he led me to high ground as soon as we were allowed into the game area. When our lasers were activated and the game began, Hulk shot rapidly and randomly in all directions and I had to be careful that I wasn’t zapped in one of the worst cases of friendly fire in laser quest history.

There were two other children’s birthday parties going on at the same time, all of us contributing to the laser chaos of mostly little people running around the game area.  I had very little strategy coming into the match, but what little I had went out the window when lasers started flying at me from all directions, many of them aimed at my kneecaps. Hulk and I ran from place to place, often finding ourselves pinned down in a bad spot, taking heavy laser fire, before shooting ourselves out of danger.

 During the first game, “Ironman” started to cry when he couldn’t find any of his comrades and I felt really awful for him. I wondered if he might change his codename to “Lost and Scared” and knew that I needed to take better care of him for the remainder of the games.

After a gruelling 15 minutes, the game was over and we exited the game area to see our scores. Surprisingly, I had bested the other 33 players and had the high score. Considering that I had beaten 28 children in claiming top spot, it was a dubious honour indeed.

Before the second game started, one of the other groups of kids pointed at me and said, “We’re all going to get you next game!”  It seemed that by winning the first round, Hawkeye had earned a Bullseye and I was in a bit of laser trouble. Thinking quickly, I asked the other kids in my son’s party if they would join me and the soldier formerly known as Hulk, who now went by “Mr. Time Twister,” in battling this other group of kids. Zack, who now called himself “Super Zack” and Ironman were the most enthusiastic and I had myself an army of little people.

Game one chaos returned for game two and I realized I was in more danger than ever of being zapped by my own men. “Listen up guys,” I said. “Whatever you do – don’t shoot each other!” It was an order I would repeat 50 or 60 additional times throughout the game.

I swear, I have no military experience.

 Super Zack volunteered to lead all enemy attacks, mostly those he called himself, without warning or backup. On those rare times he led something other than a suicide mission, his objective seemed to be to get to a place directly in our line of fire and not surprisingly, he was lasered more than any other player in the game.

Sonic was a lone wolf who regularly wandered away from the group, surprising us by emerging quickly from behind a corner, forcing us to shoot him on sight.

Arceus had changed his name to “Hunter” for the second game, but if he did any hunting, I did not notice.

Ironman shrugged off the effects of war and suffered no further breakdowns on the battlefield. Though he posted a lousy score, I think he was thrilled to be part of the group.

Our guns deactivated, we returned to base and waited to see our scores. Hunter turned to me and asked if I had gel or sweat dripping down my forehead.

“Both, Hunter,” I replied. “Both.”

Completely exhausted, we filed into the party room and sat around the long, wooden table. We helped ourselves to a juice box, some Oreo cookies, potato chips, and more mini marshmallows than anyone should ever eat. The room was filled with laughter and battle stories as the ice cream cake was served.

Ironman and Super Zack asked me between bites of their cake to explain their scorecards to them, but I didn’t have the heart to tell them they had placed 33^rd and 34^th, each of them finishing with negative scores.

“You both did great,” I told them as huge smiles grew on their faces, turned blue from the cake and marshmallows.

What else could you tell your laser brothers in arms?