Matt was in his front yard firing forearm-sized foam arrows at imaginary targets, targets that became real when Danny and his Mom rounded the corner of Market Dr. and proceeded downhill to his house on Faun Lane. The arrows could go surprisingly far; one needed to slide the hollow arrow over a very phallic part of the plastic bow, pull back a lever simulating pulling a bow-string, and then force the lever forward to expel the arrow with compressed air. Depending on trajectory, wind, and how much force he exerted, Matt discovered that he could make the arrow fly anywhere from nowhere to 30 or 40 feet; or, to give you a better idea, the distance up the sidewalk from his house to the corner Danny and Mom had rounded just in time for a yellow, forearm-sized arrow with blue Nerf feathers on its rear to smack unsuspecting Mom on the forehead just below her hairline, making the kind of dull pock that tennis balls make when hit with poorly strung rackets. Matt also liked to sing “Nerf Bow and Arrow!” – in what can only be described as a deaf person’s voice – to the tune of “Pop goes the weasel!” anytime he succeeded in hitting someone.
The best part about Nerf was that nothing ever hurt. And because it should have hurt but didn't, and instead almost always made this silly noise, getting hit with one of the things was always a funny experience. For adults it would be somewhat like having the ability to shoot each other with real guns/bullets without any of the Thanatoptic consequences. Though this begs the question: Why is pretending to kill each other so much fun?
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