/wrists

Monday, March 23
All names that follow are made up. All events that follow are true to the best of my reckoning.

So training started today. I wasn’t there for it. The military has this awesome way of waiting until the last minute to get things done, and then panicking when they realize that… there’s no time to do it. Originally I was supposed to be there two days ago, plenty of time to get settled in and find who the hell I have to report to and where. Instead I have a day to make up, no contact information for anyone down here, and no clue how to get to base from the hotel (or how I’m going to do that with no car, for that matter). At this point all I really want to do is get my room, power on my laptop, play some video games til my wife gets home from work, and call her on skype. Instead I have a laundry list of things I need to do before I can even consider relaxing.

I did have an interesting weekend though. Had some people over, had some drinks, good times were had. By far the most interesting was Saturday night/Sunday morning. After I had gone to bed and advised the others to remain inside if they were going to be loud, everyone decided to go on a beer run (walking, don’t worry). After obtaining said beer, they were stopped by a cop (mind you only one of them was “legally” allowed to consume alcohol). One of my buddies, we’ll call him Adam, decided he would take the fall for the other two, since the other under-aged guy was military and he didn’t want the eligible guy to get busted for providing. In his infinite wisdom, he decided the best course of action would be to act like a complete asshole to the cops to draw their focus away. The cop asked him where the beer can he was carrying was and he denied having one. The cop said “I saw you carrying it,” and he “And I say I didn’t have one but here’s the thing, you’re a cop and I’m not so they’re going to believe whatever you say so go ahead and say whatever the F*** you want ‘cause it really doesn’t matter.” Then another cop showed up and said “I saw you—,“ “Shut the hell up. You just F***ing got here. You didn’t see S***” Hilarious. So, he obviously went to jail, the cop instructing the other two guys “If you want to see your friend, bring $100 to the [local] police department.”

So they went to the police station and bailed him out. Then they decided that Jack in the Box plus more alcohol would be a great thing for Adam to have. He chugged half a bottle of schnapps to go on top of J.I.T.B. egg rolls and God knows what else.




Adam with his MIP

At roughly 7am I was woken by the sound of glass shattering in my living room, not one of my favorite sounds I can assure you. Jumped out of bed and, I think, kindly inquired as to what the F*** was going on. I see couch cushions everywhere, Adam sprawled between the couch and coffee table, various items from my coffee table that used to be whole and intact strewn about the floor, and both Jay and Tony “facepalming.”

“He’s a little drunk,” explained Tony.
“I see that. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, we all laid down to finally go to sleep when that happened. I think he tried to get up to go to the bathroom.”

It was at that point that Adam looked up at me with the look that Clarice had on her face the first time she met Hannibal Lector, arched his back like he was competing for the loogie long-distance record, and vomited the brownest, most viscous liquid I have seen this side swamp mud 3 ½ feet across the room at me.

The rest is history.

Tuesday March 24

So I guess it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm sorry, that's an understatement. It's actually pretty cool. Class runs 4 days a week (although we might go Friday this week) for roughly 5 hours a day. The hotel they have me staying in is pretty sweet:







As you may or may not be able to tell there is a mini fridge and microwave to go along with the king-sized bed. The hotel also has a pool and spa, neither of which I have been to yet. But hey, enough with the silver lining and on with the bitching.

One would think having 3 day weekends for a month would be great but what the heck am I supposed to do in Fort BFE? There is literally nothing here. A couple of restaurants that I'm sure are supported in whole by the military and a Wal Mart and other assorted super markets. The nearest "anything to do" is an hour drive and, guess what, I don't have a car. Awesome. So I think my free time is going to be spent playing video games and watching tv. I know, exciting.

I really don't want to get started on the training but I think I should for entertainment's sake. It's basically a shoddy tracking program on a linux platform on an archaic computer. The best part is that I get to take this class with a handful of Army guys and boy are they smart! One tried being a tough-guy over the keyboard to me and told me "You look like a peer queer," which I am assuming is a reference to a seaman (navy). I wish I could have mustered the effort to justify that with a response but I was too hung-over to care about exchanging wits with, I'm sure, the army's best. The class is literally "point at this button, click it. You should see this. Any questions?" I swear to God those neanderthal bullet-catchers raised their hands every frickin time: "uhh, what button?" God save me if these are the people I'm working with for the next year...