This is how my weekend started with a level 9 achievement in laser tag, but became a level 10 kind of experience.
First, I must digress like Sophia Petrillo talking about Sicily, only my story starts in a different city, also called Syracuse.
When I first started playing laser tag, I would go to the same center every week and play on the pack with the pre-programmed name “Legend”. You see, this was a site where memberships were not used so there was no way to sign in as Tivia, but regularly being identified and asked “were you Legend?” was certainly good enough for me. Eventually I started playing pretty regularly back then with Razz and Threll and since Razz preferred the Legend pack as well I was usually fine with letting him take it. But any time I visited an arena where I knew there was a “Legend” pack somewhere on the rack I would seek it out. Even as recently as my last trip to Florida, I wrote about playing at a site where upon seeing the screen displaying the system I announced “I’m on Legend!” before we even entered the vesting room.
Again, this only happens at sites where I can’t otherwise sign in with a membership card. However, last night I played one single game at my home arena signed in as Tivia using my membership and I still got to enjoy walking out with Legend connected to my name. You see, I had ascended to the Laserforce Level 9 status, which means that now my skill level designation is (ironically, harkening back to the beginning) Legend.
I knew this was going to happen this night. How? Well, when I left tag last week my average was 14,996 and in Syracuse you must achieve a 15,000 point overall standard game average to get to level 9. I have recently learned that our site’s requirements for level ascension are a bit higher than the default level requirements used at many LF locations, as these settings can be modified per an operator’s prerogative.
Typical Laserforce level ascensions look like this.
So, yeah…my average was FOUR POINTS shy of reaching the highest level on this system one week ago, so I knew if I played just one game it ought to push me over to the top tier, which it did. I didn’t mention this to anyone because, as my t-shirt says (thank you Jerrod), I was just Killing It Softly. :)
I hardly ever play only one game in Syracuse, but this night was different. Knowing I was so close, I wanted to get over there to achieve this goal, but I was only passing through briefly because this a quick stop for me on route to my final weekend destination of Corning, NY, home of the Miss Finger Lakes pageant, for which I run the sound as audio tech every year. I love returning to help this program because years before laser tag was my focus I was “killing it softly” on this same stage and now have the pleasure of helping other young women join our Miss Finger Lakes sisterhood.
You may have noticed that pageants come up periodically on this blog and perhaps you are also probably wondering “what does this have to do with laser tag?” Besides being the one other realm in my life where I’ve found fierce competition and friendships going hand in hand, I have enjoyed laser tagging alongside quite a few pageant titleholders…some even while wearing their crowns!
So imagine how delighted I was to learn that Miss New York 2022 Taryn Delanie Smith loves laser tag too!
Here’s what she had to say.
There are a lot of parallels to be found between pageants and other competitive activities like laser tag. There is also a great deal of camaraderie. In fact, once our pageant was over we all gathered for snacks in the hotel bar just in time for this priceless reaction the second we learned live as it was happening that Miss USA had just been crowned Miss Universe!
Even though Taryn was 1st runner-up to Miss America (a completely different system than Miss USA), we were all excited to cheer on the win of another strong competitor. Sounds relatable to laser tag, doesn’t it?
Next time I’m looking for a laser tag teammate, dibs on Miss New York!
Comments or Questions?
Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com
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