User:Nikau/Intercontinental ballistic football

In the land of the ball-less, the man with one ball is Fuhrer.

Intercontinental ballistic football is quite simply the most destructive thing known to man. It is also the most popular outdoor past time of humans between the ages of 3 and 18, despite the recent efforts of the Disney Channel to elevate sluttiness to first place.

All that is required to set in motion an unstoppable chain reaction is two non-adults and anything that can move easily between the two.

That's it.

The sole aim of the game is to get the object from A to B using any and all appendages. That the ball strikes C, D, E, F and every other goddamn character of every other human language is of no consequence to the participants.

Gameplay

Don't shrug at me, it bounced off your severed head. You know the rules.

As intercontinental ballistic football is technically football, discussion over rules tends to get bogged down in bickering over regional differences. This can be attributed to common human suspicions over any activity they do not do on a daily basis and the fact Americans are fat.

That regulations differ from nation to backyard, minute to second is of little concern, as certain principles always hold, down to the fact that the boy in a Spiderman outfit will always get ganged up on.

• He alone who hits it, gets it, even if the ball has transitioned into another plane of being. The other players, however, may provide the retriever with any tools they feel are necessary for the quest, particularly if they have been told by someone not to touch those tools.
• Unlike the Brazilian Football Team, you have not been cursed with the sorry existence of a World Cup player on a multi-million dollar contract. Therefore no punishment is too great for someone faking an injury. If even the slightest drop of blood is truly spilled, however, the injured party is allowed to shatter the eardrums of the surrounding suburb.
• Play ceases the instant anyone mentions icecream.

With friends

You pass the ball to X. He passes the ball to Y. She passes it to Z.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, this is entertaining for about the time it takes to realize someone pissed in the bush you found the ball.

You bounce the ball of a window, shattering it. Y pegs the ball at the head of Z. Z's dead baby, Z's dead.

As you have known your friends a long time, anyone who has the responsibility of cleaning up the mess created has probably already resigned themselves to the task, accepting it as the cost of their child not being some antisocial freak. Passing the ball to younger friends when they ask helps build the impression you may be a productive member of society, which may come in handy when you are caught in an uncomfortably bicurious situation by the guardian concerned.

In a game with mere acquaintances the players risk certain opportunities based upon the style of their game. A misplaced throw could remove you from a list of birthday invitations; a ball to the face may spoil what little chance you had with another's sister, you know, the one who is incapable of wearing a dress that covers her whole ass. As such, all passes are so underpowered and courteous that it would require one hell of a disability not to catch them.

Such as being left handed.

With family

One man's trash is another man's treasure, is not the best phrase to break it to a child that they are adopted.

The propensity for parents to brag about their offspring means that family gatherings are fairly common. As the adult discussion at such events generally turns to how the individual's employer made them do what they are paid to do out of pure spite, children are cast to the salad table. A game of Intercontinental ballistic football is your chance to avenge the typically small list of annual achievements proclaimed by your parents.

Hence your goal is the sensitive areas of your in-laws, particularly if they are stupid enough to be a goal keeper. As you are genetically similar to the other players, the 'I didn't mean to... defence may be used to explain all damage caused by your hand or foot. This get out of jail free card extends all the way to hospitalization, as societal norm dictates that you will still receive socks for Christmas regardless of your sadistic intent.

Of course you may have cool cousins who give you alcohol and show you cleavage on their smartphone, though most parents would prefer you had internal bleeding instead.

With pets

With the popularity of YouTube, this could be considered the professional version of the game. As millions of office workers seek to fill their productive hours with videos of adorable animals, the ability to record said animals falling clumsily over a ball has created a significant revenue stream.

Although a dog could remain entertained by a moving ball for the entirety of its natural life, this form is typically the shortened form of the game, because it takes exactly two minutes for a puppy to destroy any toy you give it.

Daaawww.

Teams

There is no international standard for deciding who will be on the two opposing teams. One constant is that the single boy who knows how to actually do tricks will have the ball during the selection process so that everyone may subtley gesture for him to join their side.

However the teams are formed, immediately after your first collective point is scored it is perfectly acceptable to break decency laws with your teammates as if you are star-crossed lovers on the rear seat of a station-wagon.

Adult players

Major league dad.

Currently, it is permissible for college and university students to join a game and be laughed at for an athletic ability that was washed away by a few short years of legal drinking. However, the most enthusiastic adult participant will generally be a balding man briefly explained to be the uncle of one of the younger children, although no one will admit exactly who.

The man is not a pedophile, as that would require the children to trust him that entering his van is not some elaborate pull my finger joke. No, the children are all but invisible to him, the only explanation as to why he will eventually kick the ball into the face of a toddler at warp speed. Alternatively, he is on the pay roll of a particularly unscrupulous health insurance provider in need of customers, something he will joke about at the next family wedding reception.

Non-players

Activists for people that can't kick a ball for shit have long been critical of Intercontinental ballistic football proliferation. Like your average non-athletic individual, a number turn to music to gain attention and acolytes, strumming away at acoustic guitars while mouthing lyrics of non-confrontation from the sidelines.

Results

Like every sport, whatever the result, there will be an incalculable amount of hair pulling and finger pointing by both sides for weeks after. In around 30 years this petty bickering will be looked back on as the time of your life, mostly because you could punch more annoying people in the face without the associated legal repercussions.

Injury time

The typical game will create more childhood suffering than the last few nights before Christmas, players lying where they fell and cursing fate made them have a brother. Thankfully there is a dose of man-the-fuck-up available to all household medicine cabinets. The humble Band Aid, when applied, will instantly cure any affliction it touches and give the child the power to score the hell out of another three goals.

Unfortunately, there will always be one that refuses to abide by what everyone else thinks are the rules. In the human body this is the skeletal system. All 206 and more of the bastards will conspire to ruin your next three months by volunteering one of their number to break on contact with an obstacle, as if it is somehow funny to shower with a plastic bag over a cast. The cast will however make you a pretty convincing Robocop.

Clothing

Unless you have the precision of a neurosurgeon, shirts can't even take a dinner at an Italian restaurant without getting ruined. Hence it is probably best for all concerned if the shirt simply sacrifices itself, like the mentor of a young fighter, to be wrapped around the torso of the child who just watched that young fighter deliver a half hour of vengeance. All other items of clothing will provide some initial resistance, however they will slowly succumb to the fallout of grass and feces and be soiled to the point of becoming hand me downs.

All except jeans. Jeans can be warn forever.

Of course, if there is mud in the vicinity, the chances of a game being launched increase tenfold. The only hope for clothes then is that the round of Intercontinental ballistic football triggers a return to animalistic behaviour, as the participants roll around naked in the disturbed earth.

Limitation

Pictured: Connect the dots, I think?

The inability of humans to decipher the fine line between boredom and hunger has proved the greatest threat to the game.

Following a particularly unsuccessful play-date at the Bay of Pigs, in which President Kennedy punted the ball into Guantanamo Bay and performed an inappropriate celebratory dance in full view of a group of Cuban second graders, Cold War leaders set about drafting the first SALT treaty, completing negotiations in 1969. Named for the ingredient they hoped would make people incapable of physical activity, the talks set about developing a range of processed foods devoid of anything passably healthy. A second iteration of the treaty was settled in 1979, mandating the packaging of childrens' foods be so bright it melts your eyes out.

As a modern-day child must now scale a literal mountain of cheese based snacks to even exit their home, the goalkeeper directed aggression of the past has been replaced with endless streams of heads to be shotted in electronic media.

Today it is unclear whether the the total eradication of Intercontinental ballistic football has finally been achieved. We await to see if the Internet will see the complete end of immature disputes over nothing, as the technology promises.

Cross my heart and hope to die.