> Who says darts can't be dangerous? Try playing Dart Death Match.

My old roommates had a dartboard in the living room, and I could tell several stories about that thing. The one that first springs to mind has two lessons in it: 1. Do not let Ellmyruh have darts if she is very, very upset. 2. The harder Ellmyruh throws the darts, the worse her aim. The story:

We had a four-bedroom apartment with two bedrooms and a bathroom at either end of the apartment, with a large living room in between. The dartboard was situated so that people could actually stand far enough back from it to have a challenge. It was also near the edge of a hallway that went to two of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. (I'd try to draw an ASCII diagram, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing.)

At any rate, one day about a year ago I was truly upset. I was going through a life-changing event that I didn't have a whole lot of control over and had reached the point where I couldn't cope anymore. I started throwing darts at the dartboard as hard as I could, and kept backing further and further away from the board. I reached the hallway opposite the dartboard, but I had so much frustration built up inside me that I could still chuck the darts hard enough to hit the board quite easily. Of course, by this time I was getting more irate and upset, and my aim was getting worse.

I threw another dart, and missed the board completely. I missed the wall surrounding the board, too. The dart sailed down the other hallway, through the open bathroom door at the end of the apartment, and lodged itself in the plastic trash can by the toilet. I sheepishly went to retrieve the dart, and disovered that I had split the entire trash can from top to bottom. I think that's when I gave up all hope of ever being good at darts.

Ell"USUALLY very mild-tempered"myruh