My best friend and I check our ammunition, making sure the barrels are spinning smoothly. Despite carrying seven foam darts each, our guns are small — easy enough to conceal in our coats as we ascend the stairs to our friends’ apartment.

In our minds, we’ve played out this ambush a dozen times. We both need to unload as much of our clips as we can to maximize the element of surprise, so the timing has to be perfect. The guns will have to already be drawn when the door opens, and an inopportune glance out the peephole could ruin it all.

We brace ourselves at the door and aim our handguns, fingers already resting on triggers. I ring the doorbell and make sure I’m staying clear of my friend’s line of fire. The door opens wide, revealing one of our friends smiling broadly. On instinct, I pull the trigger as the door is opening. Our friend’s smile turns to wide-eyed shock as the sight of the guns registers in her mind, but before she thinks to flee, my first dart adheres solidly to the center of her forehead. A clean kill.

There’s a brief moment of pause as time seems to slow down. She’s still registering the dart on her head, my best friend is awestruck at my aim, and blown away that the cheap dart had actually stuck. The pause ends quickly, though; there’s still another target inside.

My best friend hits the girl at the door with a couple body shots for good measure as we slip past our first victim with plenty ammo left to take out the remaining target. But we’ve got to be fast. Surprise may be on our side, but firepower is on the enemy’s. They have Nerf sniper rifles and machine guns. Our cheap weaponry isn’t even name brand.

Today’s our lucky day.

“Is it them?” the remaining target calls as he comes around a corner and walks into a veritable wall of darts. It wasn’t as pretty a kill, but some half dozen darts hit him despite his Matrix-like moves and our shoddy weaponry.

We’ve won the day. I give my best friend a high five. Then a kiss. She’s my wife, after all.

Our victims? Our son’s godparents.

Not one of us was below 25.

Someday, they’ll get us back. We’ll have to be on guard anytime they come over, calling “I’ve got your tuna casserole right here!”

Are we being immature? I’m not sure. Certainly, though, we’re having fun!

Therefore, I submit Nerf guns are #notjust4kids.