Of all the times I've gone tee-peeing, the best was when we got shot at.  It started out as a normal evening in Small Town, America.  Four of my friends and myself were sitting on my deck discussing what to do that night.  As usual, no one had any good ideas.  Then Matt said, hey guys, this is perfect tee-peeing weather.  Considering the proposal, we all decided that there was nothing better to do and the perfunctory trip to the local Wal-Mart was in order.  We all piled into my ‘89 Celebrity and took off.  After we picked up five twenty-four roll packs, we figured it was time to decide who to get.  We named many friends and enemies, and turned down an equal number for reasons such as dogs, security lights, and "Na, we already got them three times."  Finally, about two in the morning we decided to plaster the trees of a good-looking girl a class below us.
    As we neared her house, I pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road and thanked god that I lived in the middle of nowhere.  We all jumped out and grabbed our ammo and headed off on the short walk to her house.  Much to our dismay, however, there appeared to be lights on in the house.  Could it be that someone in this little town was up at two in the morning besides us?  We snuck around peeking in windows to determine whether they simply left some lights on or were actually up.  The discovery of a radio playing softly within the house was enough evidence to us that they were indeed up, and the job would be too risky.  120 rolls of toilet paper takes a little time to hang.  So we picked up our munitions and dejectedly headed back to my car.
    Once again, we were back to "so who we gonna get?" but this time a pure stroke of genius struck us.  Right down the road lived a friend who was fabled to have gotten tee-pee'd once too often and liked to come after the intruders armed with a portable spotlight and a paint ball gun.  The challenge was too good, and the location convenient, so we headed off in that direction.
    This time I drove past the house, and all was silent.  I pulled off the road at the end of the neighbors driveway, blissfully ignorant to the fact that this was our target's uncle.  We all piled out of the car and went to scout out our territory, when we all saw it.  Someone had already been here.  There was one roll's worth of paper waving ominously off a scrawny tree.  This was more than enough to set off our imagination, and we sat under a nearby tree to discuss the possible implications of this seemingly small detail.
    "Someone's been here and gotten run off already" claimed Scott.  "He's probably sitting at one of those windows with his damn paint ball gun just waiting for em to come back."
    "No way" says Josh "Some idiot just did a really shitty job.  Probably some eighth graders getting his brother".
    "Personally, I Gotta go with Scott." I put in "I just really don't feel like being his target practice tonight."
    "So what if we are man, it's just a paint ball gun" adds Matt.  "How bad can it hurt?"
    "Oh yea, there's a genius statement.  Pretty fucking bad.  And we don't have face masks.  What if he hits us in the face?" Scott hissed.
    "Yea, I don't like it either, and sitting here yapping like we are we're just sitting ducks.  Lets take a vote and either get outta here or get this done." I said.  We all sat there for a few seconds and listened to the erie silence, and watched the tp waving in solitary on its tree.
    Finally Scott says "lets just get outa here and head back to your place Jes, we can think of someone else to get there."  Everyone seemed to agree, so we got up and turned toward the car.  Suddenly, the brush began to rustle off to our right, and someone jumped up and yelled in a falsely baritone voice "Hey, what the hell you kids doin out here!" It startled me quite a bit at first, but I was quick to realize that we probably just interrupted the initial tp crew, and they had been in hiding this entire time, simply listening to our conversation.  The words "ha, very funny" were on the tip of my tongue when I heard a strange metallic sliding sound and the click of a bullet falling into a chamber. Everyone was frozen in their tracks trying to figure out exactly what the hell was happening here until Scott, who was closest to the area the noise had originated from, yelled "Holy Shit! Don't shoot man!" Then everyone was in motion.  I was scurrying into the drivers seat, slamming my door and fumbling to start the car when I heard the voice yell
    "Stop right there!" and suddenly the car lit up with the muzzle flash of a very large gun, the windows shook and my ears rang.  I heard three doors slam simultaneously and everybody was screaming at me to gun it.  I slammed the shifter into drive and punched the accelerator to the floorboards, spraying gravel dirt and dust everywhere till the car hit the pavement and left two black trails as long as a loaded Celebrity can make, and we were on our way.  I looked into my rear view in time to see three more flashes behind me, then I was into a curve on the road, all four tires squealing in protest, and we were gone.
    Shaking, sweaty, and worried about the cops showing up at my house, we pulled the car behind my garage and burst out of the car cussing, swearing and trying to tell each other our version of the recent events simultaneously.
    "Jesus Christ!  I can't believe we just got shot at!" exclaimed Scott.  "He had that fuckin gun pointed right at us!"
    "Did you see the fucking flame shootin out of that thing!  It had to be two feet long at least.  What the hell kinda gun was that?"  Matt asked shakily.
    "God, I know he saw my plates.  I hope the cops don't show up here.  No, I hope the cops do show up here.  That dude would be in some serious shit if he had hit one of us." I was mumbling as I leaned on my trunk.
    "Oh my God.  Oh.  My.  God.  Guys!  We just got shot at!  I thought I was gonna end up in a hospital morgue for tee-peeing someone.  But we didn't even fuckin' tee-pee him."  Josh was saying to no one, since no one was really listening to anyone else.  "We could've at least gotten shot at for a better reason than sitting under that asshole's tree.  Who the fuck was that anyways?"
    "I think it was dad, man." Matt replied.  "I don't care who it was.  He SHOT at us for Christ's sake!  With a gun!  A real gun!!
    As the night ended, we decided to stockpile the tp we had for a later date, and to plan out who to get before we leave.  The next day we found out that indeed our friend had had previous visitors, and he had personally chased them off with pepper spray to the face and a nasty little stun gun able to incapacitate you for at least 20 seconds.  However, it was his uncle who had seen us pull in his driveway that had "chased us off" with his 12 gage, even though we were, of our own accord, already leaving.  Despite the seemingly life threatening event, I have never enjoyed not tee-peeing someone as much as I did that night.

    Notes: This paper was done as a personal narrative project for my College English 10001 class,
               taught by Prof. Laura Dolan.  It's all true.  All papers on this site are copyrighted and
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