Many have seen the photo above, it’s popular online because it speaks to youthful romance and fun- It’s where many of us would like to see ourselves.  But few know the story that followed:

The photo was taken by Jessica Mellany of Shreveport, Illinois in 2007.  It’s real, and signified the first of many such games played by the happy couple.  Soon though, they found Nerf no longer sated their growing lust for violence.  Paintball followed and those times were good, the house was quite colorful and the cat learned to hide when the shooting began.  The BB era however marked the begin of their descent.  A ball broke the neighbors window and embedded in between his kneecap and femur.  The lawsuit took its toll on the Mellany family, but they persevered, so strong was their love.

Until they bought shotguns.  Their house was destroyed after only two games and noise complaints had them evicted.  They moved in with his parents, but couldn’t stop playing this most dangerous of games and his parents died within the first month.  Knowing they had little time left for freedom, they went on a shooting spree that Newsweek called “The Real Life Mickey and Mallory Knox”.  In the end, the death toll of this adventure that began as a Nerf game proved the largest mass killing in U.S. History.

Its final victims were the Mellanys themselves, both hit over 400 times each in a shootout with police that also claimed the lives of seven officers during a yet unexplained sound phenomena in which all present heard the song “Free Bird” playing in their radios.  And so the story ends, but I post this in the hope it will prove a cautionary warning about Nerf as a “gateway weapon.”

Aspire not, my followers, to be like the couple above.  For it is a thin line between play and OMG MY WIFE HAS A FUNNOODLE BRB