Benito picked me up when he got off work. We parked at his place and walked the mile down to this Indian restaurant I remembered. Too many curried vegetables later, he rolled me out of there. We browsed the little junk shops are Belmont and headed back to his place. We tried to get to sleep at a decent hour, knowing that we had to be up early the next day.

The alarm went off, and Benito got up. It was about 30 minutes earlier than I wanted, so I let him shower and get our stuff together, leaving me a few minutes to throw on a pair of my old jeans and one of his old t-shirts (since I had no t-shirts that I was okay with getting paint on). A quick stop for some hair ties and powdered donuts later, we were on the road for Joliet, Illinois, home of the paintball park.

We go there right as the clock ticked 10, and we sat in the sun and waited for our group to arrive. The only group member we knew showed up about ten minutes later, and then we waited and waited for the other six people to show up.

The head guy (the one we knew who was there with us) had already pre-paid for this private party and collected money from the others involved. Despite everyone already giving him $40 each, only two others showed up. When it was obvious that they were indeed all no-shows, we started looking around for a small group to join us since there�s really no fun in shooting the same four people over and over again.

Everyone who walked up was too hardcore. We weren�t about to invite guys wearing body armor and carrying their own equipment to play little ol� us, so we waited a bit longer. Six guys with empty hands, wearing only jeans and t-shirts walked up, and Benito approached them to join us. The group�s organizer collected $30 from each of them, and we got started with our party.

We played on several courses, and I was apparently decent at paintball. I was patient with my snipes and strategic with my positioning. One elimination course pitted Jo vs. Benito, and there was a shootout at the end. It was unfortunately a draw, but I did make everyone laugh when I took one last shot near Benito after the ref called time being up.

By the end, I was a sweaty mess, and my protective mask smelled like dogs. We all know how I feel about dogs, so EWW!

The final injury count is one very painful shot taken to the neck that amazingly left no mark (Benito zipped my turtleneck thereafter), and bruises to the left hip, left thigh, two to the right shin, right upper-inner thigh, and one in the meat of my left arm. Benito is still finding bruises two days later, and he�s also nursing mosquito bites. Since I don�t get bitten by the West Nile-carrying bugs, I only have my bullet marks to nurse. And when I say �nurse,� I mean that I have marks that I need to avoid poking.

So, yeah... I'm tough.

We eventually made it back to him place, got clean, and rested from our day in the sun. I was to meet up with Bethany9, MeeshaPeesha, and JoeCartoon at 6, but they called to say they were going to a street festival and would call me once they were settled somewhere that Benito and I could meet them.

There was some group splittage, so Benito and I made arrangements to meet up with JoeCartoon.

If you are a JoeCartoon reader (as you all should be!), you recently read the confession that he was actually a 14-year-old girl. He later recanted that, but believe you me -- JoeCartoon is indeed a 14-year-old girl! I had to sneak her into a bar so Benito and I could suck down enough booze to listen to her boy-band banter. They had Blue Moon on tap, so it was a passable night.

She was surprised when I introduced Benito by a name that wasn�t anything near �Benito,� but I think people here understand that just because he hangs around with me, he still gets some privacy. Some privacy. He was a ChicagoJo reader before meeting me, so he knew good and well what he was getting into.

We talked a bit about how we came up with his name, and then main drive for Benito was that it was better than his suggestions. Cap�n Azz. Fuckles. Slappy. Benito may be an incredibly silly and stupid name, but I�m not going to call the man I smooch Cap�n Anything.

However, after Benito sucked down several vodka tonics, the little slut started flirting with him. She was calling him Cap�n Fucky, and he was eating it up. I swallowed my Blue Moons more and more, silently steaming. As she traipsed off to the bathroom, I reminded Benito (a.k.a., Slappy-in� dat 14-Year-Old Azz) that he could have jailbait if he wanted, but that I�d call in the anonymous tip to the cops.

We dumped her on Bethany9�s front porch, I peed on the side of her house, and we headed home for some legal lovin�.

Such is the story of our night out with JoeCartoon. I hope she does well in her first year of high school and doesn�t catch a raging case of syphilis by sneaking around with older men she has no business with.

I slept waaaay in on Sunday. A shower and a change of clothes later, and Benito and I walked down the street to exchange his game at Blockbuster and get burritos at this place I hadn�t yet been. For the price of a Chipotle burrito, you get a big-as-your-head burrito with yummy stuff like corn and zucchini stuffed in between. I�m definitely a fan.

We went shopping at North Clybourn, and I picked up two DVDs -- Election for $10 and Mars Attacks for $7. Yay for Circuit Shitty for not being so shitty on their older DVDs. After some Whole Foods lovin� of nutritional yeast, active dry yeast, and rice milk, Benito dropped me off at home.

I cleaned the place up a bit, snuggled with Hammus, and napped for a couple hours. I talked with my awesome brother (who is transitioning into a grade-A catcher in his minor league baseball league), and he was quite excited to tell me about his game where he threw out one guy trying to steal second, forcefully took out a guy at home, stole three bases, and made some awesome hits with his wooden bat. Go Kyle!

I tried to call JoeCartoon after I woke up to grab some nighttime grub before she headed back to Kansas City, but her cell phone wasn�t working. Apparently she tried to hit on someone else�s boyfriend and got what she deserved. That little bitch.

So there�s my weekend. Hope everyone else had one that was just as good. �