Junk

My nephew Quint came out from Philadelphia to L.A. for a Spring Break visit to celebrate his fourteenth birthday. My sons Justin and Jared were thrilled to have their older cousin stay with them for a six day sleepover.

One game the boys share is a love for the “Air Soft” gun, a modern day (safer) way to shoot one another without the plastic bullet being able to penetrate the skin as I used to have with the Daisy Rifle BB gun I shot as a kid.

My nephew is large for his age, but very boyish and intense when it comes to playing the part of a Special Forces soldier. He takes his weapons and war games seriously, moving like a man trained by Blackwater.

Quint took a breather from his cul de sac air soft war, in which he had the locals finding cover from this visitor from another planet. I stopped over to the area and found one boy cowering behind his mom's car. "What's up Joe?" “I'm hiding from Justin's cousin, he's crazy! He keeps coming at you! The bullets just bounce off him like a tank."

During a mini break the kids took in the boy's home, Joe's mother told Quint that he should be wearing protective armor and eye glasses. He said to her: “I don’t need armor. Getting shot by an Air Soft Gun doesn't hurt at all."

He then proceeded to show her. Quint took the pistol and shot himself in the groin. It's the stuff legends are made of....

When recounting the story to me, Justin was howling, as he described Quint shooting himself in the penis, to which Quint replied: "I didn't shoot my “junk”...it was the thigh." Like a scene from the movie “Jaws,” he then displayed the welt on his alabaster inner thigh.

The following day, we tried to play laser tag but it was closed. Instead, me and seven boys played those video games that spit out tickets for prizes. Of course, I wanted return on investment, and frowned when a boy played a game that offered no cash in tickets. I personally removed Jared from a fire truck that bobbed up and down with a pretend wheel to turn.

I participated in the quest to win enough tickets to cash in for a prize worth fighting for. It took 300 to get a Whoopi Cushion. A thousand netted you a plastic guitar.

As I obsessed with winning the “Deal Or No Deal Game,” I noticed Quint was quiet and inconspicuous. Something was up.

It turns out that he was in back of the machines and had hit the mother lode, finding a machine that had a back door pried open, with coins aplenty available for the picking. The funny thing was watching him be upset when another machine took his coin. He stood there innocently as I requested a refund for him, asking me to do it because he didn't want to bug the 19 year old attendant.

Then my four year old Jared comes up to me w a big stack of tickets. Apparently, one of the other boys I brought had struck his own gold mine, and found a trash can full of tickets.

Quint seized the opportunity to get his larger hands on the stash, reaching in the can to pull out pile of strung together tickets and making a snow ball. He formed what looked like a giant globe and stuffed it the front of his shorts.

I was at a table counting our loot as the boys presented their scores to me. Quint reaches deep into his crotch to reveal about 250 coupons and put them on the table in front of me, as if my eldest had hunted down the meatiest animal for our family's feast. He was very proud.

With a smile I said: "Oh great, now I have to sort these after they were down your crotch."

"No Uncle Craig, they never touched my “junk.” It was on the outside of the underwear."

Then we cashed in our winnings and the teenager in charge looked at the desperation in the eyes of seven dwarfs and a parent who was trying to figure out a way to find a prize to share one prize with ages four to fourteen.

The attendant looked at my pre pubescent little criminals and decided to give all of them prizes! And what did he dole out to my posse? Air soft guns!

Now I am just hoping not to receive any “junk” mail from angry parents….