If three girls who have never held a gun in their lives can enjoy this past-time, anyone can - that is if don't mind a welt or two or twelve.
For about $30 you can have a very different afternoon - maybe you want to release some built up tension, maybe you dislike your friend, maybe you want to know what it feels like to run around and play war. Whatever the reason, Jaegers attracts mostly men. As a woman, with my two other female friends, this was a perk for us going in. Kind of like the time I visited Westpoint, I was one in a thousand men, something to remember.
But Jaegers is more like a paintball club. Everyone that goes there enjoys the sport to an immense degree - and most are hard right republicans if you can't guess why. I met Dick Cheney's nephew here!
Customers can pay to play either on the indoor field or the outdoor field. I never tried the outdoor field, although from the website it looks very detailed and adventuresome, I took to the indoor cave instead. It's a freakin' CAVE - it's like paying to be apart of some surreal experience, like being in a horror movie, or like playing make-believe for grown men, whichever way you want to look at it.
I personally became infatuated with paintball as a little girl. My older brother kept his paintball guns and bags of paintballs in the corner of our basement (as if my basement weren't mysterious or scary enough to me now guns were thrown in the mix, along with the Bogey man and ghosts for my eight-year-old mind to envision.)
Jaegars provides the protection and the equipment, if you don't already own it yourself, and most of the guys I saw did. The cave had a memorable REAL dank smell and it was deep and dark and winding. I could hear the echoing screams of the players throughout - it was very exciting.
As a player, you want to find something large to stoop behind and shoot at those in open areas. If your location is found at you'll want to crawl or run behind another crate or barrel. There are great photos on their website that really show well what I'm talking about in their indoor cave arena, http://www.jaegers.com/.
When I was playing, it was like being in a video game - so imaginative and exhilarating - I honestly never imagined myself in the positions I was in, running from the paintballs (that feel like small rocks being pelted hard at you by a slingshot) and trying to take down the enemy.
As a girl, I've imagined myself doing all sorts of exciting girl things, like getting locked in a mall, getting a makeover like in the movies, marrying European royalty, crap like that! But ever since my stint at Jaegars, my imagination has been broadened with less gender-specific adventures.
After the game we played (my friends and I and a bunch of other strangers that came the same time we did) - we all took off our protections and unarmed ourselves, while talking about it!
"Hey, you got me good back there." "My helmet's completely covered in purple!" "I noticed your aim got better as time went on." "Let's play another game!"
The community of painballers is awesome and I hope to go back soon with my two friends (the only ones I know who will pay $30 to be shot at!) read more