Squirt guns kill

SMCHS seniors will take part in a water war where the winner will keep $500.

Where there is water, there is life. Water makes up 91 percent of a watermelon and even 70 percent of humans. A person will die if they go more than three days without hydrating. All the fish in the sea would perish if there were no big blue.

But water is also destruction. The same ocean with the cute fishies can drown a person in a heartbeat, and a tsunami can wreck an entire village. A week after Feb. 4, water will come to haunt 150 SMCHS seniors, and all it’s going to take is the squirt of a water gun.

The Class of 2015 has given Aidan Robidoux and Claire Archibald full control to organize a massive senior war called “Senior Assassin”. This event is not affiliated with the school in any way, but rather a war where each man is for his own, designed by seniors for seniors.

Gotcha - Senior Shannon Rice is squirted by senior Delaney Rosenthal in anticipation for Senior Assassin.
Megan Snader
Gotcha – Senior Shannon Rice is squirted by senior Delaney Rosenthal in anticipation for Senior Assassin.

“A person gets assigned another person to ‘assassinate’ with a hand held water gun,” Robidoux said. ” But each person also has one person coming after them.”

You won’t know the difference between friend or foe is in this game until it’s too late and you have been hit. It is in the participating seniors’ best interests to stay alive because the $5 participation fee from each senior means that everybody’s head has a price. The person who evades getting squirted for the longest time becomes the winner and will receive $500 and the person with the most kills will get $150.

To make it fair, Archibald will not be participating. Instead, she will be the overseer—the person you text when you attack your target and need a new one.

“I’m basically President Snow in The Hunger Games,” Archibald said. “I am looking forward to seeing who kills who because I am making the kill list. It’s completely random and I am trying to make everyone’s first target someone they are not very close to like a boyfriend or a best friend. I am excited to see who ends up on top.”

This is survival of the fittest. And while Archibald is managing the games, Robidoux is prepping his mind as a player, thinking of flaws in the rules to make the actual game as fair as possible.

“I already have an aggressive strategy,” Robidoux said. “Try to get your person first in a place where you won’t be at risk. I would get my person at their house in the morning or outside of work. Avoid school because of the risk of lots of people around. Park your car in the garage so you don’t have to step outside your house. If you have a convertible keep your top down.”

However, one doesn’t have to be a nervous wreck wherever they go thanks to Robidoux and Archibald’s idea for “safe zones” — areas that are off-limits for attacks.

“School is a safe zone, your work is a safe zone, practice is a safe zone and your backyard is a safe zone,” Robidoux said. “Your front yard is not. We have not decided about the parking lot because lots of people get out we don’t want [the game] to make it slow.”

The participants simply have to follow the rules, but Robidoux and Archibald have a lot more on their minds. Making the rules for the game is a huge behind-the-scenes stress.

“Last year the seniors who planned it were really stressed out and always edgy about it,” Robidoux said. “They didn’t even trust me and I wasn’t even playing.”

But how can a senior trust a junior after the “kills” from last year?

“One junior was helping her senior boyfriend get somebody, but she ended up setting up her boyfriend for assassination,” Archibald said. “This can get twisted.”

Currently the game makers are figuring out if they are going to create what’s called “Freebee Friday” where on Fridays all participants are targets unless they are wearing something funny like a fanny pack or green socks. But for now, that’s up in the air.

Archibald and Robidoux run an Instagram account: @sm_seniorassassins2015 to keep seniors updated. They are still taking signups till Feb. 4 so seniors can still join the madness.

Until the games are over, let the water war begin, and may the odds be ever in your favor. A little squirt of water can’t kill you…or will it?