I forget the exact date this whole thing started, but it was in late February of 2003.  Fellow student at Fargo North Tom Brantseg and I were sitting in the library in Economics class talking about things in general.  We got on the subject of Nerf, on how it is the greatest substance known to man.  Then we talked about how Nerf is the most violent company ever.  The idea came to me that you could make a Nerf Artillery Shell by stuffing firecrackers inside a Nerf Howling Football.  Then it was almost like we had the same idea at exactly the same time.  That idea was:  a Nerf war would be sweet.

So it was decided.  We would get a huge Nerf war organized.  Tom would recruit people to participate in the large scale fight in the summer, and I would get a small group to test the whole theory.  So this is the story of that test.

To start, I looked for the next long weekend on the calendar.  Seeing that we did not have school on Monday, March 24^th, I scheduled it for then.  I figured that it was a Monday, so no one would be working a day shift.  Well, I was right about that.  But our numbers went from eight to five, as three people would be out of town.  So I had to modify the original plan, which was to have a four-on-four Capture the Flag battle.  With only five, I switched it to be a free-for-all.  Easy enough.

Now, I needed a location.  At first I was thinking that we could do it in someone's house.  But we are all too big for that, and something would break.  So then it I thought about having it outside, on my block.  But everyone on my block has fences in the backyard, so there would be no easy movement.  Then I thought about Longfellow School.  The grounds there are really good, with a playground, an open field, and a baseball diamond that has a cage.  And then it hit me:  Michelson Park.  That is the perfect place.  Baseball diamonds with cages, buildings, a forest area, dugouts, bleachers, a playground, everything.  It is practically the best place in town.

So with everything in place, we waited and waited for the long weekend.  And so eventually it came.  The Saturday of that weekend we planned to go get our weapons.  So when Saturday rolled around, we all got together (except for Mike, who didn't answer his phone.  I even left a message on his machine, and he claimed to be home, but obviously something was wrong.).  So Cole, Alex, Jordan, and I went to the armory to get equipped.

The search began.  It took some time to find what we were looking for, but eventually we found where they hid the weapons.  They didn't have much of a choice, with only two guns.  One was a handgun that could shoot up to four mini darts.  The other could fire twelve.  No contest.

We all bought one.  We all bought extra ammo too, except for Cole, who couldn't afford it.  Then we all went to Arby's to celebrate.  It was at Arby's that we met Bill, a disgruntled employee.  I could totally empathize with his situation, though.  It was insanely busy.  Poor Bill.  I wonder what he's up to right now.

So we all want to try out these monsters.  We again call Mike, who again does not answer.  Oh well.  After cutting off all the plastic ribbons that hold the gun in the package (By the way, fuck whoever invented those.  They are a pain in the ass.) and loading them up, it was time for the test.

In the testing phase, we found that the Nerf AirTech 4000 is about average.  Advantages to it are that it holds twelve darts, is very accurate, and it hurts you when you get shot in the face.  Disadvantages are that the range of each shot is only average and you must pump the gun at least twice after each shot to get any distance at all.  Because of that, the rate of fire is pretty bad, but with practice you can get some fast rounds off.  It was almost time.  Just two more days.

Monday comes up.  I wake in hopes that there was no rain and that it is not windy.  Only half my hopes come true.  No rain, but very, very high winds.  I heard there were gusts upwards of fifty miles per hour.  So I call around, telling everyone to meet at Michelson and well see what we can do.