Recently the husband and I stayed in Boston for an overnight after a fun-filled party cruise with the co-werkies. Since we didn't have any particular place to go the next day I decided that we should head to Faneuil Hall market. (Way cool place to visit in Boston, btw)

I found a little store that was very much like a "Think Geek" or "Perpetual Kid" type of set up. Inside were toys, jokes, trinkets, kitschiness galore, and more fun "poke your coworker" type weapons than any place I've ever seen. I was simply in heaven! (Ok.. heaven was the Coach store across the street 5 minutes before.. but still.. I was riding high)

I bought two guns that simply made me giggle. The "NunChuck" and the "CataPult" by the same makers as the "Ninja Attack" gun featured. They work by slipping a little plastic nun (Or cat... but that's my husbands gun) into a plastic dish on the front of the gun, pull it back, close the cover and shoot.

Oh how clever and smug I felt strolling in with my NunChuck gun! I felt that if I couldn't aim well and pop someone in the temple, at least I'd get a laugh (and lets face it, engineers and pasty developers need to laugh a lot, or they get all dark, broody and somewhat emo - ew).

At the first opportunity, I sprang into action.. popping out from behind one of the cubes to take my design friend unawares! Yeah. And the nun went flying about 3 inches to land rather pitifully at my feet.

Did I need that sort of humilation?? Did I want to be in the situation of now having a rather sad, defunct gun (a one shooter, mind you!) as my only means of defense against the designer ...who was laughing hysterically enough to bring all the team droogies running (GUNS IN HAND) to his defense? NO. This was bad. I was Nerfed. I was Nerfed well.

As a result of that rather scarring experience, the gun (now used for decorative purposes only) and the little plastic nuns (which are going to be super-glued to push pins and put in the conference room) was found to be a cute idea, but falls flat in the execution area.

Now don't get me wrong.. I'm not saying don't buy one of this silly beauties! They're rather cheap and a funny little conversation piece. Just make sure you don't mistake them as decent office warfare weapons. They simply don't 'chuck' far enough to keep you covered.

Current my company has one rule, bring your Nerf gun with you to meetings or suffer the consequences....

Other than a few stragglers (Interns mostly... pfft!) my team is fully armed each day at work. We do not pull punches with our Nerfiness, either. There is no "Oooh I slightly pinged you in the fleshy part of the upper arm"... What I end up hearing is "AHHhh! That was my eye!!!", and nothing at all beats the sharp, slappy sound that the suction cup Nerf darts make when someone gets one to the cheek from 2 feet away.

But I digress... I had seen this particular Nerf gun online, and made it my mission to procure one for myself. I will say, not the best idea ever. The huge dart is really cool, although easily takes out a flat screen monitor (Sorry Michelle!) but the gun part? Nah. Falls flat. So difficult to use that by the time I got the thing to shoot I was already fully covered in Nerf velcro darts. Sad, really.

So currently when I interview people (Engineers, Marketing, What-have-you) I tell them to bring in on their first day the Nerf Maverick. It's a revolver type weapon with space for 6 bullets. Small, but excellent to keep on your lap during marketing meetings (Since you KNOW the engineers will be Ninja'ing themselves into the conference room to mercilessly shoot you til you cry!)

By the way.. I have all the Nerf weapons now except a very select few, so feel free to ask me which is a good choice. I'll be happy to expound on what a great team building tool it is!