I am Spark hear me wheeze

I took Ronan and 4 of his mates to laser Quest in Huddersfield on Sunday as part of his 12th birthday sleep over.
Competitive Dad made a tactical choice of black T-shirt and combats to ensure maximum ninja blend into the black emulsioned walls of the musty smelling old mill that houses the game of the future.. And I was the only one who thought really carefully about a nickname that sounded just a little bit Matrix before we logged in with the 20 something goth girl (thanks for the free coffee) at the counter. She must see it all the time, a bunch of hyper kids laughing and joking and Dad (maybe mums but none there when we were) doing some stretches and preliminary hand chopping to get into the zone before pony-tail metal boy calls you upstairs to explain ‘gun safety’ with a studied nonchalance.
I came 2nd, no quarter given to the youth just because it was fun birthday trip out. If tripping up and pistol whipping was allowed I’d have a got a couple in on the quiet. It’s a jungle in there. And Spark (yep, cool name eh?) was da King (okay, 2nd to Luc who is 11. Shut up)

like a Stone ..
..not the lump-o-dectomy itself but me, as in 'getting blood out of a stone' : I had to give some yesterday at the pre-Op hospital visit and as always it was no easy thing to extract from my very bashful veins. The upside was that it prolonged the near proximity of two very nice nurses, one mid 20's Asian babe one senior nurse MYLF-esque in looks. I thought I had died and gone to desperately sad and needy middle aged man heaven.
My bubble was burst when they laughed (not coquette-ishly but with glee) when I had to confirm my date of birth.. quote ' veins like a woman and old, oh dear'.. Crestfallen doesn’t come in to it.
The notion bubble of a modern, efficient state of the art private (yep.. I am capitalist-scum-private health-care-paid –by-my-global-ad-agency-Man) hospital was also burst when the Senior Nurse couldn’t pronounce the procedure, wasn't sure what side of my face was being sliced and peeled and had to get a 3rd pen off a patient in a side room when the first two wouldn't work for the 'exactly how old and decrepit are you' questionnaire completion.
Word on the street (in the dept here) is that I'm actually having lipo and hair transplant. Shucks, been rumbled. The Cliff Richard of Interactive Marketing.