Inquiring Minds

Lurking behind the front doors of your dormitory, there is a student waiting for the right moment. When you unassumingly walk out and fail to make a peripheral check of your surroundings, it’s suddenly over. You’ve been shot with a water gun.

So goes the friendly game appropriately called “Assassin” at Eastern University. Each student is given the name of another student whom they eliminate from the game by shooting them with a water gun. The last man or woman standing is the champion.

If we could offer some advice: the most important thing to remember is to stay dry. A reverse strategy, which we assume would also be effective, would be to only go out in the rain or in wet clothes, thus making a “kill” disputable for purposes of unclear evidence.

The only catch to the game is that a successful kill is credible if it is seen by only you and your target. There can be no eyewitnesses to the event. It is for this reason that bodyguards and clingy friends are very valuable.

Changing your name is one way to confuse your opponents. Taking a medical leave-of-absence is another possibility. If you’re not that extreme, deleting your Facebook account temporarily may help your cause.

Most students treat Assassin with a fair degree of seriousness but still manage to practice good Christianity and sportsmanship. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect. There are always a few bad apples in the crowd. Late one night during last year’s Assassin game, an NCH RA awoke at 2 a.m. to the sound of a knock on her door. Assuming she would be putting her RA skills to work, she answered. She was shot with a water gun.

Deception may not be a fruit of the spirit, but minor sins aside, Assassin does have a good motive behind it. The money raised through Assassin goes to the Compassion International club on campus.

Compassion International is one of the nation’s largest Christian child-sponsorship organizations, helping more than 900,000 children around the world.

Although the lump sum of money raised is just over one hundred dollars, there isn’t anything refutable about a fun-creating activity that gets people involved with one another and raises money for a good cause.

Hunting down people you’ve never heard of before can be an enriching experience that leads to friendships, or just acquaintances, that you wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to make. So in the spirit of community, giving and good clean fun the world can learn a lot from our simple game that involves water guns.

Inquiring Minds is the collective opinion of the editorial staff and not necessarily representative of the entire staff. It is written by the managing editor and the editor-in-chief.