英语博客：Airsoft beebees.

 It's no secret that boys of a certain age like guns, even if they are *make-believe. I remember that before my boys ever had any plastic weapons, they would use other toys, or even sticks, and pretend that they were guns. Perhaps they were influenced by something that they had seen on television, or maybe in a book. Who knows? Even at snack time, they would hold up their carrots at eachother and pretend to shoot. Well, now that my boys are older, we have found a happy medium between play and reality. Air soft. These guns are fashioned to look exactly like the real thing, but often smaller in size. And what they shoot is harmless: bb's. These are small, plastic balls that come in various colors. We have white, orange, and fluorescent¹ yellow ones. The boys *take their weapons quite seriously. They have already had a proper air soft battle with friends up in the forest where they camped out for the night. It was supervised, of course, by parents. Eye protection is a must, and nobody is allowed to play unless their eyes are covered. The extent to which you cover yourself in clothing is up to you. Some people don't want to risk getting hit with a bb because it stings a little. As long as you wear long sleeves, long pants, and cover your face and neck, you are completely sting-free. Airsoft is the sort of hobby that grows on you. Some adults are devoted² to it. You-tube is full of video clips about the air soft weapons, and battles among friends in lots of different countries. When my two sons had their air soft camp-out, they came back with stories of all the cool stuff that people had. There are heavy duty combat suits that you can use that not only completely cover you, but also are camouflaged³. Some of the air soft guns are CO2 powered (carbon dioxide), so the bb'ss fly hard and fast at their target. What's really fun, is having a make-believe battle in our back garden as the sun is going down. We use the glow-in-the-dark bb's, so we can see when someone is shooting at us, and duck. Our kids absolutely love it; it's intense and exciting. The only trouble is, there are bb's everywhere. If you pick any room in my house, even after it's been cleaned, you will find bb's somewhere. Even the driveway has bright yellow bb's glowing against the black asphalt, and from underneath⁴ bushes and plants. Those little plastic balls started out in a factory in China, made their way by boat to the U.S., were transported by train to Washington, and then by truck to our local store. And now, those tiny things will be turning up for months in my house and entryway. 

 

Grammar notes.

 

Related vocabulary and expressions: it's no secret, make-believe, to take something seriously, glow-in-the-dark.

 

 1. It's no secret that their money influences local politicians.

 

2. My daughter's unicorn⁵ lives in our backyard; it's make-believe, of course.

 

3. She takes her cake baking very seriously; don't disturb her when she is making them.

 

4. My Halloween costume was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton.

 

1 fluorescent   

adj.荧光的，发出荧光的

参考例句：

• They observed the deflections of the particles by allowing them to fall on a fluorescent screen.他们让粒子落在荧光屏上以观察他们的偏移。
• This fluorescent lighting certainly gives the food a peculiar color.这萤光灯当然增添了食物特别的色彩。

2 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

3 camouflaged   

v.隐蔽( camouflage的过去式和过去分词 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰

参考例句：

• We camouflaged in the bushes and no one saw us. 我们隐藏在灌木丛中没有被人发现。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They camouflaged in bushes. 他们隐蔽在灌木丛中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

5 unicorn   

n.(传说中的)独角兽

参考例句：

• The unicorn is an imaginary beast.独角兽是幻想出来的动物。
• I believe unicorn was once living in the world.我相信独角兽曾经生活在这个世界。