Nerf - Cats love it!

^ Remember this thing? If you wanted to be one of the cool kids in the early 90s, you absolutely had to have one. Before the Super Soaker was a thing, water pistols were just a bit shit. Sure, some of them looked badass. My younger brother had one shaped like an M16. It was stupidly huge, looked a LOT like a real gun (as far as five year old me could tell) and gave off such a pathetic little squirt, it may has well been a 90 year old with prostate problems.

So it took a NASA engineer to turn these boring toys into something even grownups would buy. I remember my uncle and his friends talking about how one of them would hide on the balcony with his Super Soaker, waiting to start an ambush, but he pumped the gun too much and built up so much pressure, the pressure tank came loose and hit him right in the head. Not sure how you're supposed to hold this thing to make hitting yourself that way even possible, but maybe it bounced off of something or maybe they were exaggerating a bit for the sake of drama. My point is, they were adults and they talked about the fun shit they got up to with their Super Soakers. I wanted one! I just had to nag the absolute shit out of my parents and...

They hated me.

Every kid has at least one family member, who asks what you want for Christmas, then goes ahead and kinda, sorta buys what you want, but not really. In my case, this applied for the entire family. I remember when I asked for a He-Man action figure one Christmas. I got Grizzlor. Not once. Not twice. I GOT FOUR FUCKING GRIZZLORS. One from my parents, one from my grandparents, another one from my other grandparents... you get the idea. "But you could just pretend they're mommy Grizzlor and daddy Grizzlor and baby Grizzlor!" Thanks, grandma. Thanks so fucking much.

Pictured: Crushing disappointment.

You'd think they at least talk to one another to make sure they're not all buying the same shit. But no - the same thing happened again when Moss Man came out! So I had an army of Grizzlors and Mossmen and a cheap knockoff Super Soaker and not an original toy in the house.

Years later, when I finally turned 16, I went and got a job, earned my own money and bought my own Super Soaker, long after they stopped being cool, yet long before they'd become cool again for a short period of time. It didn't really yield the satisfaction I had hoped for.

They changed so much, it just wasn't the same anymore. Also, nobody cared.

My friends and I were in our mid to late teens. Angsty, self-conscious, some a bit more depressed than the rest, DON'T POINT THAT THING AT ME! It was all pot, alcohol, fucking around and shitty poetry. Life was suddenly shit. No fun allowed. That Super Soaker was doomed to collect dust.

I still have that thing. Still works, too. Still not super into it. It's not the cool Super Soaker folks had in my childhood. And I live in fucking England now. 'Wet' is basically considered a pretty normal state in this country. It rains more often than it doesn't, 'summer' over here is the one day in the year where temperatures climb above 20 degrees centigrade and water guns just don't go well with British politeness. And my Super Soaker isn't just a lot weirder and less awesome than the original version, but it's also a lot less awesome than today's variants, which come with detachable magazines and shit. I'm not making this up!

Fill up a bunch of magazines and exchange them as you go. Playing around the house is more CoD than ever!

The only appropriate thing left to do with my crappy Super Soaker XP70 was target practice with my lab assistants Professor Cat and Professor Othercat.

Also pictured: Prof. Mothercat, who was later killed in a tragic Nerf accident.

Alas, the house if full of computers and games consoles and all that fun electronic shit I need for work. So, for as much as my cats enjoy being super-soaked, I had to keep the indoor water-shooting activities to a minimum. Safety first. Sorry, cats!

"I'm bored now."

Of course there's a fun, safe alternative, which one could consider the next evolutionary step up from the Super Soaker: Nerf. And just like the Super Soaker, the Nerf gun had an uncool alternative when I was a kid:

You can throw the little darts further than the pistol shoots them. And they stick to absolutely nothing. Then the gun splits apart in the middle, because it's made of cheap plastic and sadness.

Nerf guns are dumb, pointless and I absolutely don't need one. And I've been trying to get one for years, but now I had two new problems: my freelance job and my girlfriend. The former made sure I never had enough money to waste on stupid toy guns, the latter made sure I wouldn't attempt to waste money on stupid toy guns regardless.

They sell the basic Nerf blasters for ten Quid in just about every supermarket. I tried sneaking one into our shopping trolley on numerous occasions, but Mrs. Kitten spotted it every time. She was not amused, much to my disappointment. And that of my cats, obviously, who were running out of ideas for fun new science experiments.

"Fry me to the moon!"

But our luck was finally starting to change when I landed a job as the community manager for Owlcat Games. Suddenly I had money. Not just pay the bills money. Or buy real food money. Or buy real food and the occasional videogame money. I'm talking pay off all debt, put something in the bank and still have something left for fun shit levels of money. Of course the girlfriend still wasn't happy about the idea of a Nerf gun, because it's dumb and we don't need one. Heck, I'm not even gonna try to argue with that, but if we're being honest, that exact description applies to just about everything we own apart from food and toilet paper. I had to come up with something. In the name of fun. My sanity. The entertainment of my stunt cats.

"90 minutes, 90 degrees. Do it, human!"

And one day it finally happened! It was my birthday, so we decided to celebrate like all classy white people in the UK celebrate - with a trip to Greggs, followed with a visit to B&M. I filled up on delicious ham and cheese subs and Capri Sun, then we went to the store to look at throw pillows, shower curtains and rugs, picturing what our lives would be like if we treated our house like a home and not just some place where we eat, sleep and dump all our stuff on the floor.
And that's when I saw it. Just sitting there, collecting dust on a shelf, special offer, extra low price, Christmas is coming, somebody please just buy this garbage. And this time nobody could stop me, because it was my special day. BOOM:

Rawrrr!

It's called the Maverick. How fucking cool is that? Spinning drum revolver, loads six foam darts and shoots them with such a ridiculous amounts of force, Professor Othercat couldn't believe it when I fired a test shot at her stupid face. Don't worry, she's fine.

FINE!

Mrs. Kitten was a bit concerned, so I demonstrably shot myself in the face. I cried on the inside and told her I felt absolutely nothing, much like herself when we sleep with each other. Here's the thing, though - the cats are suddenly incredibly well-behaved. They used to climb up the curtains in the living room, knock shit down the shelves and just act like total dickheads in general. Now, if one of them even looks at the curtains, I just have to point at Mr. Maverick and the cat will instantly cease all assholery. Amazing!
I was really enjoying my new toy, so I spent some time looking around the internet and learned that there's Nerf everything - shotguns, bows, crossbows, even freaking sniper rifles and all the weird tactical attachments you could think of. I figured, hey, if I had a nerf gun that fired multiple darts, I could play with both cats at the same time! Only fair, right?

I am the Terminator!

I went and ordered a pump-action Nerf shotgun and damn is it satisfying to shoot! I can sit in the living room, fire all the way across the corridor and hit a cat that is misbehaving in the kitchen with two nerf darts at the same time. I wonder if there's some way to rig this thing to fire all 8 darts at once.
Of course I don't want to be the only complete idiot in this house, who should be way too old to be enjoying this shit and I felt a little guilty just ordering all the fun stuff for myself, so I went and ordered a blaster for Mrs. Kitten. You know, to win her over on the idea.

So adorable!

I figured she wouldn't want something big and unwieldy and might have a little more fun with a semi-automatic gun, which simply lets her fire all the darts rapidly. So the Stryfe has a cool name and it's fun and small and easy to use aaaaand then I saw they're selling mods and attachments like extra large magazines and foregrips and red dot sights and... well, long story short:

Adding ALL THE ATTACHMENTS!

Lets just say our cats will never be bored again.