Swim goggles — the new fashion fab or a senior’s desperate grasp on a $500 prize?
Maybe you’ve seen seniors across the valley adorned with colorful goggles soaking in the last weeks of high school. Personally, you wouldn’t catch me getting lunch at Dos Gringos or sweating through the end of a workout without them. They’ve transformed into a necessary but agitating accessory. Why? They are the only protection in the face of looming assassinations.
Senior Assassins has swept the nation, becoming a core cultural experience for countless graduating seniors. To recap, seniors use apps like Splashin to assign targets and post videos; the motive: to shoot your targets with water guns. To advance to the next round, at least one person on each team must survive seven days, and each team must eliminate at least one other person. Goggles or other floaties act as “safety items,” except during the purge. Purge is a free for all, when anyone can get anyone — safety items don’t count — and where mayhem erupts.
Don’t worry, we take precautions. Places of worship, school grounds, private property (except with an owner’s permission), and moving vehicles are off-limits. On-the-clock employees are safe, and the Roaring Fork High School resource officer gave us a strict talking to about ensuring our water guns are both neon and purely water-containing.
A particularly competitive spirit, and a minor longing for the prize money (each senior contributed $10 dollars to play) has made it to where I have far more experience getting people out in a brave warrior-esque style than becoming another casualty.
So far, I have a 6-0 record. Not to say the opps haven’t tried. From getting parked in my driveway for an hour, to a harrowing moment when three teenage boys tried to strike on my way into the house — which quickly turned worse for them upon discovering I had immunity (since I was on my own property) — I certainly have had no shortage of adrenaline-filled close-calls.
Some of the assassins aren’t meant for battle. A dear friend showed up at my house while I was in the bath and desperately attempted to cajole my sister into letting her inside. Then she proceeded to take out her frustrations on my perfectly innocent sister, soaking her with her electric, hot-pink, spray-painted gun. (She’s out now, by the way.)
Despite their failures and feeble attempts at shooting me, I haven’t let my guard down. I find myself constantly on edge, with my head on a swivel.
Senior events — like senior skip day, senior prank and a million and one grad parties — are steadily approaching. In the beginning of the game, the stakes didn’t feel quite so high, and I was just fine with sacrificing all dignity and wearing goggles. (My goggles are blue with a great white shark and a shark-bitten surfboard.)
But now, as I write this, the deadline (Sunday, May 24) is looming, and there are only two teams left.
My incredible partner and I are the only team who have not had a single member get hit. Our opponents — “The Super Soakers” — are full of threats, none of which have come to fruition. (All bark, no bite.) Tensions are sky high, and we eagerly await the unavoidable face off. To make the last rounds more exciting, safety items, like goggles, no longer protect us.