20 dudes with nothing to do, and a lemon tree. LAUNCH!

There were about 20 of us. All guys, of course. That announced our sorry sack state like a catastrophic mishap with the July 4th finale fireworks. From far away, we probably looked like the gathering from Jimmy's birthday party, heading over to Auntie Mary's down the street for some special ice cream cake. Up close, it was geek patrol. The mission: to walk around the block. Code word: Losers.

Desperate measures needed to be undertaken to liven up the night. Kirk had brought a 12 pack leftover from a gathering the week before, and though the cans felt like they had just been pulled out of a flaming barbeque pit, we drank them all down. We found no buzz ñ too many dudes, and not enough beer. The only thing we got out of it was maybe a stomach ache, definitely a dry thirsty throat. Code word change: Fuckheads.

Indeed it would be fuckheads who ruled the roost that night, and we were all a part of it. All fuckheads.

I'd like to blame the lemon tree. It was, after all, right there where we had decided to park it after all that walking around to nowhere. I mean, it was just a matter of time before someone pulled a big ol' ripe lemon off the tree, and threw it at someone. And then that person, he would pull a lemon off the tree himself, and launch it at his attacker, who would take refuge behind someone who was just minding his own business, maybe talking about baseball, or how badly he'd like to give it to Sally Sue in his math class, even though she probably had pimples on her butt, on account of having lots of acne on her face, so all of the sudden, he's involved, focusing on pulling off "a big ass" lemon, so that he can return fire.

That's exactly what happened, naturally. We had ourselves a lemon fight.

We got bored of that pretty quickly. Not with the lemons, but with throwing the lemons at each other. Naturally, we looked for new targets.

The first choice was rather obvious, something that no one could miss -- a two-car aluminum garage door. It wasn't so much the size of the door, however, but rather the sound it would make once pelted by 20 lemons.

"One, two, three -- LAUNCH!" and off we fired the lemons. The resulting echo of the "Boom" raced by us as we ran down the street.

Boy, we thought we were damn funny, but each garage door that we assaulted, the less we laughed. Pretty soon, we were just throwing lemons at the garage doors, and then simply walking way.

It was as we were just slowly shuffling along that John, who hadn't bothered to throw his last lemon, stopped right in front of everyone, turned to give a smile, slowly eased back his arm, and then hurled that lemon aloft. Up, up, up it went. We watched it reach it's peak and then start to fall back to earth -- timed perfectly to land on a car that had just turned the corner and was heading right for us.

No one had to say anything. The thrill was back. We were all at full speed when we heard the car screech to a halt. We ran all the way back to the lemon tree, to stock back up. We had a new target.

We found a perfect lair to launch our lemons -- A house with all its lights out, with lots of bushes and trees covering most of its yard. Hiding in the bushes, we'd patiently wait until a car's headlights pierced the opposite end of the street. Everyone would start shushing each other, as if the person driving the car could actually hear us. When the car was about fifty yards from, Kirk would scream "LAUNCH," and all at once, 20 lemons were lofted up into the air, as high as we could throw them.

The unsuspecting car just driving along had know idea what was about to fall from the sky.

Safely situated in our hiding spots, we heard the thunderous crash down of the lemons. For the people in the car, it probably seemed like World War III had come down right on top of them. They had no idea what had happened. Naturally, the driver would just screech to a halt, sit there for a second, and then hit the gas to get the hell out of there.

Finally, though, instead of just driving off like everyone else, one guy got out of his car. That kind of fearlessness freaked me out. This guy had no idea who had just assaulted his car, but still, he got out to confront his attackers. He knew we were in the bushes. You could tell he was squinting, trying to see where we were, but it was too dark, the brush too thick.

"I'm gonna kill you kids. Or at least one of you," he snarled. "I'm not going to move. I'm going to wait right here."

Nobody moved or even made a sound, for what seemed like forever. I just started to assume that I'd be the one he would catch, that I was going to take a beating. I had the urge to walk out of the bushes, to apologize. The panic welling up inside was just about to burst out in the form of a cry for my mom when, all of the sudden, a lemon streaked out of the bushes and smacked the guy right on his forehead. "Thwack!"

"Son of a BITCH!" he screamed.

Another lemon pelted him in the stomach ("Ooomph"). He bent over, and yet another lemon bullseyed the top of his forehead ("Fhwwwp").

"GOD DAMNIT!"

He turned and stumbled away, yammering about calling the cops.

That was our cue to make a run for it. We ended up back at the lemon tree. Not the smartest place to go, if indeed the guy had called the police like he said he was going to. Most of the lemons were gone, except for the ones at the top of the tree. Everyone was laughing, lying in the grass.

Mission complete.