Max

If Friday night was all about the girl, Sunday afternoon was all about the boy.

Let me tell you right now....I chose his Christmas gift in early December.  If you have issues with video game  choices, gun control, shooting ranges....quit reading now.  Really.  Stop.

Okay, those of you who are still with me, Max loves the book "The Zombie Survival Guide."  Somebody suggested that I take Max for a zombie shoot.  It's a little like paintball, in the sense that the ammunition will hurt if it hits your bare skin but it won't kill you.  In early December, I decided that a Zombie hunt would be an awesome gift. 

First, thing we did was gun safety.  When I was growing up, my grandpa had a gentleman's farm.  If you wanted to keep your chickens safe from foxes and cats, you needed a gun.  Grandpa had a gun cabinet in his kitchen.  It was all glass so you knew exactly what was inside.  Typically, his gun was not inside.  It was leaning up against the outside of the cabinet.  Touching Grandpa's gun was the equivalent of saying "Could you please beat my @#$ as hard as you can?" because that is EXACTLY what would have happened if you touched Grandpa's gun without permission.  Max's gun experience is pretty much limited to squirt guns and skeet shooting at summer camp.  As Max pointed out to his uncle today, "Ironically, it was a Christian summer camp."

I thought Max receiving instruction on how guns work would be very informative for him.  Two sentences into the class, I had to remind him that even though he (apparently) knew the name of every part and EXACTLY how it all worked as well as possible modifications and what results those modifications might yield...it was our turn to listen.  It was informative for me.  I learned, that the magazine goes in with the bullets forward, it's a bad idea to have your finger on the trigger when you are not trying to shoot, and that a big white bird is not standard issue with a Baretta.   Who knew?  I also realized that playing hours of video games really does improve your accuracy in target shooting.

The Zombie part is a little like laser tag.  It's long hallways with doors, windows, lots of mirrors to trick you and curtains.  As you walk, you trip sensors that cause the zombies to groan and then you have a little time to shoot them before they infect you.  Nothing actually touches you, there is just a buzzer that goes off.  At one point, there were three individuals.  One civilian and a zombie who appeared in front of me and a zombie that popped out from the left flank (don't I sound all GI Jane!?!??!)  I had to hit the first zombie, avoid the civilian, and turn to get the second zombie.  The guy said it was definitely a Charlie's Angels move.  Thank you Jill, Sabrina and Kelly, I always knew that what I was learning from your show was so WAY more useful than math!

After that, Max and I practiced driving in the rain for an hour.  He practiced slowing down within a reasonable amount of time, I practiced slamming my foot on the imaginary break that miraculously grows on the passenger side as soon as you start teaching your teenager to drive.  We both did an excellent job!

Max is the first time I ever experienced love at first sight.  He was the most perfect baby I had ever seen.  He is creative and smart.  When he was in 4th grade he gave an explanation of combustible engines that left his PhD pack leader's mouth agape.  He is the kind of young man who, without any instruction from me, approached a group of military men at McDonald's to thank them for protecting our country.  He volunteered at our Senior Center this summer.  He will run out of his way to open the door for a person who is elderly or disabled.  I love Max for being a bighearted zombie loving boy!  Thanks for going zombie hunting with me today!

(As a side note, I let Max read the above post.  He told me once how one of his games has a feature that allows you to turn the guys into babies instead of killing them, which he sometimes uses.  I was going to use that detail as a way of revealing something about Max.  I yelled into the other room to ask him if the game was Mortal Combat.  He said yes and asked what I was doing.  I told him I would let him read it when I was finished.  After reading this entire post, including the paragraph immediately before this one, the only thing he said was, "Where's the part about Mortal Combat?"  How could you not love a kid like that?????)