Hall Tag

Hey everybody, happy thursday. Right now it's about 6:17, and I'm nearly ready for bed. I have to be at the school tomorrow at 6 to film another Seminary video. Aye, that's gonna be rough. Oh well, at least I'll finally get a good nights rest because of it. I havent had a nap today, and I'm gonna run off to bed ever so soon. I just wanted to get some stuff out for you all before I run off.

So, life has been fairly swell these days. I've been sleeping everyday in class this week, but only when I can afford to. I'm not a slacker or anything, I just like to use my free time to sleep, is that so bad? I don't think it is. Today my algebra table got the smart idea to put the long pointy end of my glasses in my ear as I slept. That's just not a good idea. See, us Thatchers are generally very nice people. We joke around being mean, but deep down I think we're pretty nice. We're nice until you wake us up that is. People just shouldn't try to wake us up, it's a bad idea. People especially shouldn't try to wake us up by putting crap in our ears. That made me pretty mad for the next hour or so. Last time I help them with algebra.

Anyways, Track today was way cool. We were supposed to go to the Kearns Ice Oval, but couldn't, so we stayed back and played Hall tag. We had about 10 people playing, and 3 people were it. They carried around a rolled up hand-towel, or a sock-in-a-sock. Their goal was to run and hit somebody with that. Whoever got hit was it. We could run anywhere in the school, as long as it was a hallway. A and B hall were considered off limits due to their remoteness.

Taylorsville is built pretty good for this. Every hall has 2 access points. One from above, and one from below. That means that you've always got somewhere to run, but that also means that you've got 2 ways to get surprised. For this game you had to be quick, but you had to be smart too. Well, I've got the smarts mostly handled, but good crap I can't sprint. I used to think I was good. yeah, nope. I can go run a mile faster than most fatkids, but they can outsprint me 80% of the time.

So, Hansen explains the rules to us, then just tells us "...........run" So we all sprint out of there like crazy, and the bad guys follow us about 4 seconds later. At this point we are all out sprinting like madmen. Everyone is fresh, and the guys that are it don't wanna be it for long.

Sprinting out like a gazelle, I chance a look back, and they're right behind us. Hoping that I'd lose the pack, I turned down H-hall or I-hall, im not sure, it was all a blur. Unfortunately, 2 other guys went that way, so one of the it's branched off and followed us. One of my fellow gazelles outran me with ease, but the other was as fast as me, so we were racing to not be the last guy. we got to the end of the hall quick, and then had to mount the stairs. I got the edge on him there, thanks to all those crappy stadium circuits we did for Cross country. I can do stairs like none other thanks to those. Anyways, I'm now not the last one, but I'm still pretty vulnerable. We start back up the hall way, except now we're on the top floor. The first guy branches and goes north, towards G-hall, and I go south towards the gym. The bad guy follows the other guy, so I'm safe for now.

Coach had told us to keep moving, even if we weren't being followed, so I kept a joggin. I had made it around the gym area once, and then gone down towards the center, and was coming down the bottom of H-hall towards the main hall when a hunter turned the corner, about 15 feet in front of me.

Had I been a swearing man, I would have cussed like a sailor. It's the worst feeling in the world. You know that you're trapped. He's facing you with a sock, 15 feet away. You've got to turn around, accelerate, and somehow keep running fast enough not to get hit, and long enough for him to give up. He's just got to keep his pace and own you. Pretty much, you're screwed.

My face contorts in fear for a moment, and then quick as a half submerged hippopotamus, I turn on a dime and book it down the hall the opposite way. I've got no hope of outrunning him, he's alot faster than me, I've got crappy shoes, and c'mon, its the circle of life, he was bound to hit me. He caught me when I slowed down for the stairs, and gave me a very resounding smack across the back. He dropped the sock, flashed a grin, and he was off. He was off limits to me now, at least for a bit. I couldn't turn around and be a lamewad to hit him, I had to go find fresh prey.

This was only about 3 or 4 minutes into the game. The hunters and the prey hadn't had time to sufficiently evolve to best suit the environment. The longer someone plays a game the better at it they get. They learn which hallways are least trafficked, they learn how to best sneak up, and how to best avoid getting snuck up on. Well, this was 3 minutes into the evolutionary time period, they hadn't learned jack yet. I knew I wasn't fast, but I figured I might be a tiny bit more clever than them as of yet, so I turned that to my benefit.

I stowed the towel underneath my right arm, in the armpit really. This way, I could approach other prey without them thinking I was going to bust out and smack them. I picked this up pretty quick, after the first guys saw me from ages away and booked it. I wasn't gonna catch them, so I had to adapt. I busted that thing into my armpit, and then just casually jogged over to Levi. He thought I was just a friendly little gazelle until I smacked him upside the head with my now-sweaty-sock. He sighed only as Levi can, and picked up the fallen sock and trudged off the other way. I sure thought I was smart.

Well, It ends up that being smart definitely isn't going to save you in this game. You get hosed no matter what you do. You'll be prancing along a hall you know to be deserted, and all the sudden two bad guys will pincer you. One from upstairs, and the other from downstairs. You know that they didn't plan it, but it happened sporadically what seemed like every time. Other times you'd just pop up and the bad guys would be on top of you. Other times you just didn't run as fast as them (....ok, all the time...)

The game went on though, I got tagged, and I subsequentially tagged. It was super super fun, because it was total commando action. There was a phobia about stopping to walk for too long, because Hansen would smite us, so we all tried to keep moving around. We all tried to sneak around a little when we were alone. We learned pretty quick where all the mirrors were in the building so we could peek around corners without being peeked upon. Stairways were interesting, because if you ducked right you could be almost invisible, and still see down the hallway. We got to be good friends with all the janitors, making them do recon for us. We learned which stairways you could reach from one level to the next and still tag them. It was crazy fun.

In the end, I didn't end up with a sock. That's all that matters. I spent alot of time with the sock though, but it was fun anyways. The simplest of games, but one that developed into a pretty serious affair pretty quick. I love it.

Having fun isnt hard when you've got a library card. Its not hard when you've got 10 guys and a couple socks either.

And with that, I'm out. I have to be up at 5 tomorrow. That's 10 hours from now. good crap. We're swimming for track tomorrow after school, and i'm gonna have to film then too. Before, and after school. Oh man, there better be some freakin' sweet halo action to make up for this stuff. It really ought to end up a good video, I'll slap it up here as soon as she's done.

In the meantime, here's a pretty sweet quote. I'm gonna toss one up every time now, cause I've got alot of them that are good. so.... yeah. G'night all, have a good one. I'll see y'all later.

"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Solomon Short