To begin with, I should say that I've been an avid Nerf fanatic since I gripped my first of many pink and black Turbo Juniors back in ?84. Did you know that Nerf is actually an acronym for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam? Well, I know that, and now you know it as well, along with my level of Nerf geekdom. I can't explain it, but holding that football gives me an unbelievable feeling of masculine power. With one flex of my arm muscles, I can pinch that sucker down into nothing more than a helpless wad. Then, I just ease off my death grip, and it pops right back into place. Good as new. I guess you could say that I feel like Nero at the Coliseum or an instrument of God when I'm choking the life out of my Nerf toys and then sparing them at that last minute. All balls must respect my grip.

The only thing I enjoy more than smothering a Nerf is accessorizing my F-150. I've already got a paint-matched Gaylord's tonneau cover, a 4? Fabtech lift with 36? BF Goodrich rubbers, and every piece of Putco chrome I could get my hands on. My next move was to add some step bars so my mother wouldn't have to agitate her sciatica climbing into the cab. When I started looking around, I was pleasantly puzzled to see that these steps were being called nerf bars. Sure, there are no similarities between my neon toys and those stainless steel and powder-coated nerf bars, but I knew I had to get a set.

After doing my research, I found that a lot of people were raving about Westin nerf bars and Nasta nerf bars. It almost came down to a coin toss, but my inner dawg told me to go with Nasta. My online order arrived about a week later, and it only took about an hour to bolt those bad boys into place. To show off my latest upgrade, I rounded up my Mom and Uncles and cruised down to the park on the next sunny Saturday afternoon. Man, I have to say that those nerf bars were glistening like a couple of sterling straws from a heavenly malt shop. Feeling like a million bucks, I decided to toss the ol? foam around, which turned out to be a terrible idea.

Now, there were a couple of cuties in cutoffs hanging around, so I decided to let loose with my Nerfing skills. I told my Uncle Devon that I was going long, and I tore off down the field. Unfortunately, Devon was a second-string QB at his community college, so he released a Hail Mary that was big enough to absolve even Cain. I had to turn on the afterburners to get under it, and then it took a last-second dive to catch that sucker. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I had high-stepped it into the parking lot. So when I came down with my Nerf ball, my head clipped the side of my new Nasta nerf bar. I can't remember a whole lot about that day, except waking up on a gurney and seeing those two cuties in cutoffs staring at me from the back of the crowd of gawkers that had gathered around the ambulance. The rest is all an achy haze.

I lost a lot of blood from the silver dollar-sized flap of skin that scraped off my scalp, and it took a few days before I stopped seeing double. But I'm happy to say that the only damage to my nerf bar was a bit of gore, which hosed right off.