I woke up to the sound of screaming. Not fearful. Not pained. Loud, chaotic, bratty screaming. I rolled over in bed and slammed my hand on the snooze button of my almost-more-ancient-than-myself alarm clock. Seriously?! I thought I fought in Vietnam, and these ungrateful little mongrels can’t give me a moment of sleep? I groaned at the ache in my back.

“Helen!” I yelled. My daughter came rushing in with a cup of steaming coffee and a stack of pancakes. I gave her a sloppy grin. Helen thought that when she wasn’t visiting, I barely had the strength to dress myself. Little did she know I was just sweetly playing her for free labor like Hitler should’ve done instead of gate-keeping an entire country into mass murder. And besides, she made chocolate pancakes way better than her mother, but don’t tell Maria I said that because she would convince heaven to strike me with lightning so she could beat me with her religious sandal.

“Here you go, Dad,” Helen’s head bobbed as she talked, “Just like you like it, with extra cream and sugar.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.” I said gruffly, adding a fake cough in there for extra sympathy, “And do you think you could talk to those neighbor boys’ parents again? I’m afraid those boys are going to hurt themselves.” With a wooden spoon, I cough-chuckled so Helen wouldn’t notice that I was thinking of the parents’ faces when she told them their kids were harassing an old man.

“Of course, Dad,” She smiled sweetly, “By the way, I have to run to the bank today.”

“Again?” I raised an eyebrow, “You know if you're seeing someone, you could just tell me instead of pulling a Leah.” I patted her soft hands with my wrinkly ones and gave her my best mock listening face. To my great surprise, cough not cough, Helen blushed. She hurriedly stood up and brushed her pants off with a nervous chuckle.

“That’s ridiculous, Dad,” She rolled her eyes, “Anyway, I have to go. Bye! The TV remote is on the coffee table.”

“Wait!” I called out, “Is it Robert from accounting? You said you respected him a while ago!” The only response I got was the sound of the door slamming shut. I huffed. Why did Helen never talk about the things in her life that were actually interesting? Oh well, at least I knew where the remote was and how to get to Netflix. After all, there was no other goal in the life of a true senior citizen, and not those high school pretenders.

After I finished my heavenly breakfast, I reluctantly rolled out of bed and shrugged on a button-up shirt and some jeans. Why, you may ask? Because it was the stereotypical outfit of an old dude, why else? After I did that, I pulled on my cowboy boots and started on the perilous journey to the living room couch. With great effort, I settled down in its green fold of nap excellence. Mission accomplished, sir.

I grabbed the remote and scrolled through movies for a while before realizing that nothing was interesting to watch, and I really didn’t want to watch Frozen again. Anna should’ve just punched Hans, end of story. So I did the one logical thing I could think of: I decided to go torment some teenage boys. Soon enough, revenge would be mine, and they would all be crying at home to their mommies. I may have chuckled maniacally at that lovely thought.

I sat on my patio patiently for two hours waiting for those boys to be finished with whatever other shenanigans they were up to before they circled back to my house. I then waited for them to make a considerable amount of ruckus before I launched my attack. With all the stealth of a Black Panther, or rather, the Black Panther, I threw my first balloon from my hiding spot behind my hedges.

The balloon landed right in the middle of the red-haired biker boy’s face. I grinned. Bullseye. He looked around, confused. Just as he shouted to challenge whatever coward was hiding in the shadows to come face him in the customary duel, I launched my second balloon. It hit the back of the boy named Joe.

And so the war began. Within ten minutes of my fourth balloon, the boys had disappeared and then returned with water balloons of their own. All of them had red water balloons at the ready, one for each hand, to counter my blue ones.

“So here’s what's going to happen,” Orangutan boy shouted, “If you hit all of us before we hit you, you win, but if we get you first, we win, and you have to buy us that fancy new Coca-Cola.” I just threw another water balloon. To my great joy, it hit the shortest kid with such great force that it knocked him to the concrete.

“Sucker!” I quietly wheezed through laughter. Orangutan boy didn’t help his friend out before he screamed a war cry and tossed his water balloons with all the scrawny might his arms had. Little did he know, I was the best sniper in my regiment and could hit a fly from thirty yards. As his generation so hilariously said, “bro was cooked”.

Man after man, I struck the acne-ridden boys down. And with every loss, the orangutan boy grew more frantic. Finally, there was none left standing but himself.

“Come out, you coward!” He shouted.

“Is that really what you want?” I shot back.

“Well, that’s what I said,” He sounded slightly unsure now, which I took as my cue to step out of my freshly-trimmed hedges. With the dying breath of my lightning-fast reflexes, I hit the scrawny redhead right in the chest. As water splattered all over his chest, I watched the shock creep into his eyes with great joy. I raised my cane in victory.

“Take that, you scrawny little brat!” I bellowed, “You just got conquered by an eighty-year-old man!” With that, I trudged back into my house to watch Frozen. I would just pretend Anna was less naive than laugh at her when I remembered she was absolutely delusional.

“Hi, Dad,” Helen opened the door four hours later with a satisfied smile on her face. Definitely Robert from accounting. “How was your day?”

“It was great, sweetie.” I told her, looking equally satisfied, “Want to watch Frozen Two with me?” Helen rolled her eyes, but I knew she wanted to.

“Sure, Dad,” She sighed. I might never tell her that I won a water-balloon war against teenagers, but I would sleep in the grave easy knowing I had.