Basically Darts, She Said

February seventh. Here is what Simone told me: axe throwing is basically darts. You just hold it, aim, let go. Low-key. Chill. A thing normal people do on a Thursday evening when the temperature outside makes staying in feel dangerous to morale.

Here is what I did not do: throw an axe anywhere near the target on my first four attempts. The fifth attempt hit the wood. Not the rings. The wood. The flat expanse of timber that exists entirely around the target. Simone, who had apparently watched enough tutorial videos to constitute a minor certification, stepped up on her second turn and stuck it. Not perfectly. But closer than I managed in six tries combined. She did not say anything. She just looked back at me with an expression I have come to understand means: I'm not going to make this worse for you right now, but I do want you to know that I know.

The venue smelled like cedar shavings and something faintly mechanical, and there were two other groups in the lanes beside us who were significantly better at this than we were, which helped slightly. The staff person who offered to take a photo caught me mid-release on a throw that went wide and Simone in the exact moment of trying not to laugh at it. That is the most accurate document of the evening.

Simone's form vs. my form. No further comment.

We sat on the bench afterward and Simone said the thing about darts again, this time with the qualifier 'okay, maybe heavier darts,' and I told her that was the most useless revision I'd ever heard, and we sat there for another ten minutes not doing anything in particular. My arm hurt by the time I got home. It still hurt a little the next morning. I'm going to go again. I haven't told Simone that yet.

Post-axe debrief. Very professional.