Part 2 of 3 of my 20th anniversary look back at Desert Storm
The War That Wasn’t…
After my short, but probably for the best, stint with the security police of RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, the Ground War Portion of Desert Storm was getting ready to commence, and the Air Force decided they needed my newly-honed, critical defense skills in a place further from home – Gloucestershire County, England – across the country from Suffolk – nearly a 7 hour drive in the POS BMW – probably 5 or so in almost anything else.
No matter. What could go wrong?
It’s important to note, over a lifetime, there are probably fewer questions that can be answered in a less acceptable way than “what could go wrong?”
As a public service, I offer a short list of some of the others:
“She’s how old?”
“You can outrun a cop, right?”
And my personal favorite, which isn’t technically a question but serves the same purpose:
“Watch this…”
On my way to RAF Little Rissington the POS Beemer decided to … just…stop.
Wonderful, now I have to find a phone and call for a tow. So I knocked on the door of a quiet little house to ask for a phone and maybe get out of the crappy English winter weather.
Travel note for all of you who don’t travel much and might one day. First, I can’t really say enough good things about England, but they are a sneaky people. To whit: had the house I was about to enter been in America, there would have been subtle signs warning me about what might happen. There might have been cars in various states of dis-assembly; weeds everywhere; a half-broken chain-link fence; a mail box either nearly fallen down or reinforced with nuclear bunker thickness concrete – these and/or a variety of other signs would have been happily alight telling to me risk pneumonia and just keep walking.
But no, this was England. This is the same country where about a year before I got there, the public affairs officer at Bentwaters was giving a tour to a group of elderly English people (who are the sweetest people on the planet toward Americans) and a lady said to him, “If you Americans weren’t here, we’d all be speaking German.” To which, without missing a beat, the American officer replied, “Yes, and driving much better cars.” I cannot make this stuff up.
Anyway, being in England the garden was immaculate, the house incredibly tidy and there was only one car in the drive which seemed in a far better state of repair than my ironically German car gasping its last on the verge. So I knocked.
There are different accents in England if you weren’t aware. The English have their rednecks too. To us they all sound very sauve and so very…European. But make no mistake, the English are accent snobs like everyone else and they know a redneck Englishman when they hear one.
I had no such auditory skills.
These kind folks let me use the phone and then started talking to me in a very friendly way. When they realized I was American (which would take the normal English person exactly 0.0005 seconds) they then quickly deduced I was in the military and decided they could tell me about --- the prophecy.
Have you ever been in a situation where, unbidden, the banjo riff from Deliverance sounds in your head?
The prophecy of course, was one of the hundreds of ‘prophecies’ that nut jobs across the world were coming up with as we sent our forces into Saudi Arabia – very ‘end of the world’ sort of stuff. I’m sure these people were on the Good Ship Coco-Puff when the year 2000 rolled around as well.
I really wanted to be friendy and pretend to be suitably alarmed and awed by their declaration of imminent doom, but that was rendered nearly impossible when the drink they had given me flushed its way out my nose and onto their deep pile carpeting. (In England deep pile carpeting is one of those signs akin to those I would have seen outside in the U.S.). Fortunately, they thought I had sneezed and so I had to conjure a second and third ‘sneeze’ to capitalize on the ruse. No one is going to believe just one sneeze, even if they are wearing a tinfoil hat.
Eventually I made my way to RAF Fairford where I was to be billeted. With 15 other guys. In a single 2-bedroom home. There were 11 of us in cots side by side in the living room of this unfurnished house. Each day, as I no longer had a working automobile, I had to take a bus 45 minutes to RAF Little Rissington where I ‘worked’.
Let me explain Rissington. Remember last post I said the Cold War was great because we knew the enemy and their capabilities and blah blah blah? Well, Little Rissington was the result of our plans for the seemingly inevitable push of the monstrous Soviet Machine through the Fulda Gap in Germany and straight into our shopping malls where we were sure they would take all the toilet paper, feminine hygiene products and liquor.
Because we knew an invasion by the Soviets would cause casualties on a huge scale, we thoughtfully set up a number of rear-echelon ‘contingency hospitals’. RAF Little Rissington was the largest. Now, for years and years it was the job of 43 people to hang out at Rissington and watch the boxes of medical equipment and supplies and, should the balloon go up, get all that stuff out so we could be ready for a parade of wounded.
In two weeks, Rissington went from 43 people to more than 2,000 doctors, nurses, technicians and the largest contingent of military chaplains ever assembled in one place (or at least AF chaplains – there were more than 50 I think). Within a couple days two hangars on the old airfield were converted into wards – 750 beds in each hangar -- to see it was to be awed by how incredibly grim it would be when/if filled. Just filled with empty, made-up beds - each with two canisters of oxygen and whatever - it had the capacity to make a person sad to the point of morose because it was impossible not to think of it being full.
Technicians meanwhile, were busy opening never before used equipment – everything from X-Ray machines to the machine that goes Ping! I remember a conversation I had with one sergeant in the x-ray station.
Me: So, this stuff is brand new eh?
Sgt: Well, it’s never been opened before and never been used.
Me: Is it old?
Sgt: I’ve read about this type of x-ray machine in books but I’ve never actually seen one.
Words cannot adequately describe the look on his face as he glanced at this piece of machinery. You’ll have to trust me that it was indicative of the whole experience.
I met a Catholic priest while there who looked like he had a story. We talked and he told me how he was an 18 year old private in the Army during the Korean War. He said, and I quote, “I was a young man…doing things young men do…”
He didn’t actually say “wink, wink, nudge, nudge,” but he didn’t have to. Anyway, he went home after his stint, got engaged and after lots of story that doesn’t matter, made a promise to a priest that if he got selected for seminary, he’d go. The joke of course, being on the priest because it was late August and seminary started in two weeks and they only accepted people months in advance.
The lesson here being don't play games with God.
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he told his fiancé he was leaving her to become a priest. Talk about a self-esteem body blow.
‘Darling, I’ve decided I won’t marry you but instead become a celibate priest…I’m sure you understand.’
We had the chance to have this talk while I was working. You see, my big 'job in the war’ was to put out a newsletter to let people know what was going on. Thankfully my job was made easier by this being the first war to feature CNN.
My job, in essence, entailed watching CNN and taking notes. Typing those notes up into a newsletter, copying them off, and delivering them to various bulletin boards on base on my large tricycle. (my second adult-sized tricycle of my Air Force career – and my last thankfully).
I hope you can start to appreciate the lengths I’m going to have to go to when I have to lie about “what I did in the war” when I have grand-children.
“My grand-dad was in a tank that rolled over the Republican Guard and kicked their ass out of Kuwait”
Oh yeah, “My grand-dad watched CNN and copied information and… and… and I’m going to get beat up now aren’t I?”
But those 1,500 beds were never really used much – and that’s why it’s a good thing the war wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be when we started. You see, RAF Little Rissington is about a 2 hour bus ride from RAF Upper Heyford, a large USAF base where wounded people would be flown to.
So this is the deal. Someone gets wounded in Saudi Arabia – they get medevaced to the rear where they are put on a plane and fly to Germany (about 6 – 10 hours whatever) then they get moved to another plane where they are flown to England (2 hours ish) then they are put on a bus and punished for 2 more hours traveling down really narrow, winding, often badly paved ‘C’ roads in England, where they now need medical assistance because of the drive.
But it didn’t happen often – and the patients we did have had minor problems – broken ankles from tripping into foxholes, a 50+ year old Reservist who had had a heart operation very recently, that kind of thing. The “operating theater” was in the middle of the 750 beds in the hangar – “walled” of by sheets. Not the most sterile of environments if you consider any high-ceilinged hangar you’ve ever been in. Had things been bad I’m sure the job would have gotten done – but it’s just as well things went as they did.
In the end, the nurses, doctors and technicians left and the war, for the most part, stayed in the Gulf. While there were a few casualties who went through Rissington, the only fatality I was aware of was my POS Green BMW. It didn’t survive the war.
Next up, part 3: Even REALLY hungry people won’t eat chicken ala king MREs.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
How western civlization almost ended
(This is the first part in at least a two part – maybe more – historical review)
20 years ago today (Feb 22) President Bush The Elder gives Iraq 24 hours before ground troops roll in and, unbeknownst at the time, proceed to kick the collective ass of the world’s (for the next 24 hours) 4th largest army.
In the interest of history, posterity and, let’s face it, writing something so the 13 of you here might come back occasionally, I’ll tell you the true story of just how close western civilization came to utter ruin.
It has been my contention since joining the service in 1986 – indeed since signing up before graduating high school – that if the time ever came where I personally was handed a loaded weapon, we as a civilization were, in no uncertain terms, fucked. I try not to be profane in this blog, but the seriousness with which I felt this way leaves no recourse than strong, even foul, language.
It must be remembered, after all, during the Cold War you didn’t enlist in the Air Force to go shoot commies – you joined the Air Force to send officers to go shoot commies. Thus was the Cold War disparity between the services. In all other services, the lowest paid were sent off with a rifle to do their duty for God and Country. In the Air Force, we sent the highest paid in their expensive planes while we stayed back and made sure the liquor store was well stocked. At least that was how we trained.
The Cold War, as you may have picked up on from reading this for any length of time, was institutionally speaking, a good War to be in. It had everything you really wanted in a confrontation minus the hinderance of any actual violence.
The Cold War had antagonists and protagonists who knew each other very well; defined terms of what one could expect in the event of escalation of hostilities; well thought out and reasoned approaches of advance, retreat and rules of conduct. Plus the added benefit of the ever-present threat of global thermo-nuclear war which meant that nothing ever really happened.
Ah, good times indeed.
A little Cold-War sabre rattling could, with luck, mean several weeks in a passably English-speaking, largely American-accepting, foreign nation with an exceptional dollar to whatever-the-hell-they’re-using-for-currency-today exchange rate, drawing some much needed per diem and putting a young enlisted man on the fast track to completing the ‘beers of the world’ tour ahead of his college contemporaries.
I don’t care what anyone says. If they joined the service prior to 1990, that’s why they did it – for that and the pizza (but that’s another story).
So, it’s getting near crunch time in the desert (short foot note – before the first Gulf War most people I know had to look up which was desert and which was dessert. Now no one does – just sayin.) Anyway, me and my new bride are getting settled into the apartment and I get “a phone call”. I’m to report to the security police squadron as an augmentee.
You see, they sent a lot of Air Force cops to the desert to guard Air Force bases which meant that given heightened security at home stations, someone had to step up and fill that security gap.
Enter ... your highly trained … military journalist.
“Sgt Bushey, step forward and get your weapon.”
A Weapon? Really? With bullets? Cool.
“No, not cool. Have you ever fired one of these?”
At Basic.
Under his breath but purposefully audible, “oh, good Lord, we’re all going to die.”
For the record, this was the third time in my life someone had said that to me. The first was in high school when my buddy Eric would show up at my house with his puke-yellow Toyota Corolla and a 12 pack of beer, hand me the keys and tell me to drive him around while he drank. He didn’t wear a seatbelt because he figured what happened would happen and besides, I was there to drive while he drank, so it would be my fault. The second time was because of the POS BMW mentioned a few posts back when Will, also sans seatbelt, and oddly, also while drinking in the passenger seat, said he knew he was going to die in that car with me. And now this. It would be enough to make most people rethink their career options. Thankfully, I’m not that guy.
I am, however, this guy...
When you are handed an M-16 and 210 rounds of live ammunition, it is not, repeat NOT, the time to turn around to the 40 men and women you will be in close proximity to, tilt your hat, give a little sniff and say, with your best Barney Fife impersonation … anything.
Just don’t do it.
Ever.
Air Force cops, as a rule, are the best group of folks ever to have on your side if you’re in a jam and if they think you have two ounces of common sense. Also as a rule, they do not like to be ridiculed. Also, if they think you’re a dork, you’ll be … sitting on a fire tower watching a fence line where nothing has happened since invading Vikings realized they were in a place where nothing was happening and moved on. And you’ll do this for about 10 hours before going back to the SP shack where there will be an audible exhaling when you clear your rifle without incident.
After a few days of this, a certain inevitability took hold. The same kind of inevitability that Eric and Will had - where as a group, these SPs I was now spending 12+ hours a day with were becoming desensitized to the fact that my arrival and the Air Force's continued insistence on providing me with the means to eventually hit something important, only made their dreams of growing old less and less likely.
It was in this spirit of "oh, why the hell not" the SPs took me under their wing and showed me what they really did on a day-to-day basis. I was teamed with a guy I'll call 'Dave' because it's been 20 years and I have no bloody clue as to what his name really was. I was to be Dave's partner in Humvee patrols around the base perimeter.
I know, I know. That sounds really boring. Well, let me tell you something. It really, really is.
Or it really was until...another Humvee came along. The other cop pulled up driver to driver and he and Dave started talking. Dave gave a quick look toward me as if sizing me up to see if I'd squeal and whether my weapon was nearby. Then he nodded to his buddy and the other guy took off - fast.
"Ok, this is what we're going to do..."
All right, thought I. "We going to shoot rabbits?"
"Uh, no. We're going to have a contest with those guys in that other Humvee."
As God is my witness I'm not making this up. For the next three hours we drove through every mud hole and patch of dirt we could find and as fast as we could because the contest was to see who could get their Humvee the dirtiest. Losing team had to wash them both. We never lost.
The Shadow was curious as to why the next day I was so excited to go to work. All I could manage was: "Mud, cars, firearms...what's not to like?"
Still, there was a real shooting war set to start any day now, and after only two weeks I got another call which would take me away from the Shadow for the first time of our very new life together and would ultimately spell the end of the green POS BMW.
Next Post: The war that wasn’t … thankfully.
20 years ago today (Feb 22) President Bush The Elder gives Iraq 24 hours before ground troops roll in and, unbeknownst at the time, proceed to kick the collective ass of the world’s (for the next 24 hours) 4th largest army.
In the interest of history, posterity and, let’s face it, writing something so the 13 of you here might come back occasionally, I’ll tell you the true story of just how close western civilization came to utter ruin.
It has been my contention since joining the service in 1986 – indeed since signing up before graduating high school – that if the time ever came where I personally was handed a loaded weapon, we as a civilization were, in no uncertain terms, fucked. I try not to be profane in this blog, but the seriousness with which I felt this way leaves no recourse than strong, even foul, language.
It must be remembered, after all, during the Cold War you didn’t enlist in the Air Force to go shoot commies – you joined the Air Force to send officers to go shoot commies. Thus was the Cold War disparity between the services. In all other services, the lowest paid were sent off with a rifle to do their duty for God and Country. In the Air Force, we sent the highest paid in their expensive planes while we stayed back and made sure the liquor store was well stocked. At least that was how we trained.
The Cold War, as you may have picked up on from reading this for any length of time, was institutionally speaking, a good War to be in. It had everything you really wanted in a confrontation minus the hinderance of any actual violence.
The Cold War had antagonists and protagonists who knew each other very well; defined terms of what one could expect in the event of escalation of hostilities; well thought out and reasoned approaches of advance, retreat and rules of conduct. Plus the added benefit of the ever-present threat of global thermo-nuclear war which meant that nothing ever really happened.
Ah, good times indeed.
A little Cold-War sabre rattling could, with luck, mean several weeks in a passably English-speaking, largely American-accepting, foreign nation with an exceptional dollar to whatever-the-hell-they’re-using-for-currency-today exchange rate, drawing some much needed per diem and putting a young enlisted man on the fast track to completing the ‘beers of the world’ tour ahead of his college contemporaries.
I don’t care what anyone says. If they joined the service prior to 1990, that’s why they did it – for that and the pizza (but that’s another story).
So, it’s getting near crunch time in the desert (short foot note – before the first Gulf War most people I know had to look up which was desert and which was dessert. Now no one does – just sayin.) Anyway, me and my new bride are getting settled into the apartment and I get “a phone call”. I’m to report to the security police squadron as an augmentee.
You see, they sent a lot of Air Force cops to the desert to guard Air Force bases which meant that given heightened security at home stations, someone had to step up and fill that security gap.
Enter ... your highly trained … military journalist.
“Sgt Bushey, step forward and get your weapon.”
A Weapon? Really? With bullets? Cool.
“No, not cool. Have you ever fired one of these?”
At Basic.
Under his breath but purposefully audible, “oh, good Lord, we’re all going to die.”
For the record, this was the third time in my life someone had said that to me. The first was in high school when my buddy Eric would show up at my house with his puke-yellow Toyota Corolla and a 12 pack of beer, hand me the keys and tell me to drive him around while he drank. He didn’t wear a seatbelt because he figured what happened would happen and besides, I was there to drive while he drank, so it would be my fault. The second time was because of the POS BMW mentioned a few posts back when Will, also sans seatbelt, and oddly, also while drinking in the passenger seat, said he knew he was going to die in that car with me. And now this. It would be enough to make most people rethink their career options. Thankfully, I’m not that guy.
I am, however, this guy...
When you are handed an M-16 and 210 rounds of live ammunition, it is not, repeat NOT, the time to turn around to the 40 men and women you will be in close proximity to, tilt your hat, give a little sniff and say, with your best Barney Fife impersonation … anything.
Just don’t do it.
Ever.
Air Force cops, as a rule, are the best group of folks ever to have on your side if you’re in a jam and if they think you have two ounces of common sense. Also as a rule, they do not like to be ridiculed. Also, if they think you’re a dork, you’ll be … sitting on a fire tower watching a fence line where nothing has happened since invading Vikings realized they were in a place where nothing was happening and moved on. And you’ll do this for about 10 hours before going back to the SP shack where there will be an audible exhaling when you clear your rifle without incident.
After a few days of this, a certain inevitability took hold. The same kind of inevitability that Eric and Will had - where as a group, these SPs I was now spending 12+ hours a day with were becoming desensitized to the fact that my arrival and the Air Force's continued insistence on providing me with the means to eventually hit something important, only made their dreams of growing old less and less likely.
It was in this spirit of "oh, why the hell not" the SPs took me under their wing and showed me what they really did on a day-to-day basis. I was teamed with a guy I'll call 'Dave' because it's been 20 years and I have no bloody clue as to what his name really was. I was to be Dave's partner in Humvee patrols around the base perimeter.
I know, I know. That sounds really boring. Well, let me tell you something. It really, really is.
Or it really was until...another Humvee came along. The other cop pulled up driver to driver and he and Dave started talking. Dave gave a quick look toward me as if sizing me up to see if I'd squeal and whether my weapon was nearby. Then he nodded to his buddy and the other guy took off - fast.
"Ok, this is what we're going to do..."
All right, thought I. "We going to shoot rabbits?"
"Uh, no. We're going to have a contest with those guys in that other Humvee."
As God is my witness I'm not making this up. For the next three hours we drove through every mud hole and patch of dirt we could find and as fast as we could because the contest was to see who could get their Humvee the dirtiest. Losing team had to wash them both. We never lost.
The Shadow was curious as to why the next day I was so excited to go to work. All I could manage was: "Mud, cars, firearms...what's not to like?"
Still, there was a real shooting war set to start any day now, and after only two weeks I got another call which would take me away from the Shadow for the first time of our very new life together and would ultimately spell the end of the green POS BMW.
Next Post: The war that wasn’t … thankfully.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I'm no longer responsible for my own decisions
Lately, I've been scribbling down notes that I hope would be useful when writing these entries. You see, I could just write about my day and such, but let's face it, my day is oatmeal exciting and no one wants to read that - despite fiber being good for you.
So, I'm going through my notes - which are liberally distributed across three small notebooks, various receipts and the odd cereal box - whatever happened to be handy when the thought collided - and while I may one day post an entry made of entire random thoughts that I couldn't really get 600 words out of, I ran across this:
"I'm no longer responsible for my own decisions"
That's what my notebooks are like - if you were to find one and read it you'd start looking for the secret decoder ring or think you'd just discovered my second job as a fortune cookie writer. (In fact, that one above works because, as you know, when you read a fortune cookie, you're supposed to add the words 'in bed' to the end. Try it. It works every time.)
So, I'm staring at this note trying to remember what past me was trying to tell future me and I decided that as I couldn't do that, I'd go to Target. Now, I love Target because it's clean and nice and the people there don't smell. It's also laid out to give you some space where you can ponder as people do - you know, hold something up and stand back a couple feet like the extra distance is offering you some fresh perspective on linens that you can't get simply by holding them.
So, I'm standing in Target, holding various items at a distance from my body usually reserved for taking out used diapers, and just looking at stuff. What stuff isn't terribly important because I didn't actually buy anything and the reason I didn't is because I realized what the note meant.
I was looking at towels, considering whether or not to buy a couple more so I could maybe push off laundry to an every-other week chore instead of once a week. And, as you know, I've taken to talking to myself (which people in Target still generally frown upon) and my conversation was pretty mundane ... which one do i like better. "Well, the red one is nice and fluffy and would feel nice and probably be good for just laying on the floor like a rug. The green one is big though and could probably serve duty as a car seat cover if pressed. hmmmm...."
Well, and here it is, I decided I liked the red one. So almost without thinking I immediately put it back on the shelf and started walking toward the registers with the green one.
I took about three steps and then, BAM! What the Hell just happened there?
It's called conditioning. Pavlov's dogs could tell you all about it. I realize that I am conditioned to shop with the Shadow who takes great pains to gather my input on things like which paint colors I like, and which plates I think look nice etc.
As she has never, in 20 years of marriage, actually said the words, "that's a great choice," I'm resigned to the fact that she sees me as a kind of taste geiger counter. If faced with a dilemma in which she thinks she may choose incorrectly (and therefore loose her woman card) she asks me - knowing that I'll make the inappropriate choice. One day, if the Shadow and I are cowering under a table with a briefcase bomb facing us, timer ticking, and a red wire/blue wire choice to make, she'll ask me which wire to cut - and then snip the other one. I don't even question it any more.
So, in the end, I didn't buy any towels at all. I put the green towel back on the shelf, and to prevent my man card from spontaneously igniting in my wallet, I scrunched it all up and shoved it in the middle of a stack of pink ones, and hearted by this act, walked away.
When I got back to BOB I realized I had made the right choice .... the green definitely would have worked better with the colors in the apartment.
Damn.
So, I'm going through my notes - which are liberally distributed across three small notebooks, various receipts and the odd cereal box - whatever happened to be handy when the thought collided - and while I may one day post an entry made of entire random thoughts that I couldn't really get 600 words out of, I ran across this:
"I'm no longer responsible for my own decisions"
That's what my notebooks are like - if you were to find one and read it you'd start looking for the secret decoder ring or think you'd just discovered my second job as a fortune cookie writer. (In fact, that one above works because, as you know, when you read a fortune cookie, you're supposed to add the words 'in bed' to the end. Try it. It works every time.)
So, I'm staring at this note trying to remember what past me was trying to tell future me and I decided that as I couldn't do that, I'd go to Target. Now, I love Target because it's clean and nice and the people there don't smell. It's also laid out to give you some space where you can ponder as people do - you know, hold something up and stand back a couple feet like the extra distance is offering you some fresh perspective on linens that you can't get simply by holding them.
So, I'm standing in Target, holding various items at a distance from my body usually reserved for taking out used diapers, and just looking at stuff. What stuff isn't terribly important because I didn't actually buy anything and the reason I didn't is because I realized what the note meant.
I was looking at towels, considering whether or not to buy a couple more so I could maybe push off laundry to an every-other week chore instead of once a week. And, as you know, I've taken to talking to myself (which people in Target still generally frown upon) and my conversation was pretty mundane ... which one do i like better. "Well, the red one is nice and fluffy and would feel nice and probably be good for just laying on the floor like a rug. The green one is big though and could probably serve duty as a car seat cover if pressed. hmmmm...."
Well, and here it is, I decided I liked the red one. So almost without thinking I immediately put it back on the shelf and started walking toward the registers with the green one.
I took about three steps and then, BAM! What the Hell just happened there?
It's called conditioning. Pavlov's dogs could tell you all about it. I realize that I am conditioned to shop with the Shadow who takes great pains to gather my input on things like which paint colors I like, and which plates I think look nice etc.
As she has never, in 20 years of marriage, actually said the words, "that's a great choice," I'm resigned to the fact that she sees me as a kind of taste geiger counter. If faced with a dilemma in which she thinks she may choose incorrectly (and therefore loose her woman card) she asks me - knowing that I'll make the inappropriate choice. One day, if the Shadow and I are cowering under a table with a briefcase bomb facing us, timer ticking, and a red wire/blue wire choice to make, she'll ask me which wire to cut - and then snip the other one. I don't even question it any more.
So, in the end, I didn't buy any towels at all. I put the green towel back on the shelf, and to prevent my man card from spontaneously igniting in my wallet, I scrunched it all up and shoved it in the middle of a stack of pink ones, and hearted by this act, walked away.
When I got back to BOB I realized I had made the right choice .... the green definitely would have worked better with the colors in the apartment.
Damn.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Let's hope it's not hereditary
According to statistics, I am among the top 7% of educated people in the United States.
That’s ridiculous.
While driving home from work today, I was listening to the radio and the gentleman speaking was setting up a story. A very nice tropical jungle scene. And he said the following: “Now just close your eyes and imagine….”
AND I DID.
For those of you who don’t get that – let me type slowly – I… was… D-R-I-V-I-N-G!
Had this been the only occasion of something like this happening it probably wouldn’t warrant me saying a word about it. But, sadly, it is not. Not long ago (this afternoon before my drive home … I’m not kidding) as I sat in my car and gave my pre-drive sigh … knowing the hour long commute back to BOB had nothing to offer (at the time I didn’t know I’d have a radio perform mind-control on me) – I looked at the nice smelly thing I had in my car.
‘Nice smelly thing’, is, I believe, the technical term for one of those air deodorizers. In this case, it was an air ‘odor’-izer because I bought it several months ago with the car, so I never had any odor in the car to ‘de’-odorize if you follow me.
So, I’m looking at this thing, realizing that it seemed to be lasting an exceptionally long time, but not really producing much in the way of actual odor. So, being a person educated to a point that places me in the top 7% of Americans, I pulled this thing out of the vent and twiddled with it for a bit – moving the knob back and forth that controls the degree of odor that emanates from the thing. After a couple minutes I had an inspiration … perhaps, just perhaps, I hadn’t opened it.
Curiously, I was correct in this assumption. For FIVE MONTHS I’ve had this thing in my car wondering why it didn’t emit odor. Driving back and forth every other week to take doctoral level classes – classes that would, should I ever finish the degree, place me in the top 1-2% of educated people in the United States, mind you -- and I had not opened the thing.
This should cause you some alarm – or at the very least a modicum of concern. For I can vote – and on occasion, have done so. When I deploy later this year, the US Government will not only give me a weapon – maybe 2 – with live ammunition, but also put me in charge of other human beings. If that still doesn’t cause you concern, please note, I have procreated. And very likely passed on whatever recessive gene it is that causes me to do these things.
And before you give me the benefit of an entirely too generous doubt, let me explain today wasn’t just a bad day.
No.
Sadly. No.
When I was 15 or so I had a motorcycle – a 100cc Suzuki which I painstakingly took apart in my parents’ basement. Not being particularly inclined mechanically, I carefully put each part on a piece of paper and labeled it so I would, theoretically, know how to put it back together. While doing this, I wondered what the inside of the engine looked like – from the inside.
Now, I must pause here to stress to you the time frame in which this next thought passed through my head. This thought passed through me from pre-thought to “that was stupid…” in fractions of fractions of a single second. A micrometer of some sort - perhaps a flux capacitor or even an Eludium Q-36 Interplanetary Space Modulator (See Looney Tunes, Marvin the Martian) would be needed to record just how fast this thought passed through my head. It was that fleeting.
With all due hesitation, I tell you, as I sat there looking at this engine, I noticed a spray can of “clear” paint and thought… Yes. For a blip in the time-space continuum, I was Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, thinking I could spray paint the engine clear and have a peek inside without having to even empty the oil.
I’d like to make really, super clear what a small amount of time this was…but I fear whatever prohibitively small time parcel I can come up with will be meaningless to you now.
And if that's not enough to worry you – or more specifically – worry my children who have likely inherited this predisposition. In the early ‘90s, the Shadow and I lived in upstate New York where we had a house that is now a parking lot. While working on said house I took off a light switch plate to reveal some bare wires. I said to my lovely bride, “be careful not to do this (touch the wires) when you turn off the switch.”
It’s important to realize that I have some French-Canadian blood in me and the urge to use my hands while communicating is beyond my control. As I was warning my good wife, I was showing her what not to do – thereby, of course, ACTUALLY grabbing both (very live) wires on either side of the switch.
Whatever few and small faults the Shadow may have, she heeded my advice and never did touch those wires as the resultant piece of French-Canadian bacon that was her husband twitched on the floor.
You’ll note at the beginning of this post I said I was among the top 7% of educated Americans. I did not say among the top 7% of the smartest Americans.
It's an important distinction.
That’s ridiculous.
While driving home from work today, I was listening to the radio and the gentleman speaking was setting up a story. A very nice tropical jungle scene. And he said the following: “Now just close your eyes and imagine….”
AND I DID.
For those of you who don’t get that – let me type slowly – I… was… D-R-I-V-I-N-G!
Had this been the only occasion of something like this happening it probably wouldn’t warrant me saying a word about it. But, sadly, it is not. Not long ago (this afternoon before my drive home … I’m not kidding) as I sat in my car and gave my pre-drive sigh … knowing the hour long commute back to BOB had nothing to offer (at the time I didn’t know I’d have a radio perform mind-control on me) – I looked at the nice smelly thing I had in my car.
‘Nice smelly thing’, is, I believe, the technical term for one of those air deodorizers. In this case, it was an air ‘odor’-izer because I bought it several months ago with the car, so I never had any odor in the car to ‘de’-odorize if you follow me.
So, I’m looking at this thing, realizing that it seemed to be lasting an exceptionally long time, but not really producing much in the way of actual odor. So, being a person educated to a point that places me in the top 7% of Americans, I pulled this thing out of the vent and twiddled with it for a bit – moving the knob back and forth that controls the degree of odor that emanates from the thing. After a couple minutes I had an inspiration … perhaps, just perhaps, I hadn’t opened it.
Curiously, I was correct in this assumption. For FIVE MONTHS I’ve had this thing in my car wondering why it didn’t emit odor. Driving back and forth every other week to take doctoral level classes – classes that would, should I ever finish the degree, place me in the top 1-2% of educated people in the United States, mind you -- and I had not opened the thing.
This should cause you some alarm – or at the very least a modicum of concern. For I can vote – and on occasion, have done so. When I deploy later this year, the US Government will not only give me a weapon – maybe 2 – with live ammunition, but also put me in charge of other human beings. If that still doesn’t cause you concern, please note, I have procreated. And very likely passed on whatever recessive gene it is that causes me to do these things.
And before you give me the benefit of an entirely too generous doubt, let me explain today wasn’t just a bad day.
No.
Sadly. No.
When I was 15 or so I had a motorcycle – a 100cc Suzuki which I painstakingly took apart in my parents’ basement. Not being particularly inclined mechanically, I carefully put each part on a piece of paper and labeled it so I would, theoretically, know how to put it back together. While doing this, I wondered what the inside of the engine looked like – from the inside.
Now, I must pause here to stress to you the time frame in which this next thought passed through my head. This thought passed through me from pre-thought to “that was stupid…” in fractions of fractions of a single second. A micrometer of some sort - perhaps a flux capacitor or even an Eludium Q-36 Interplanetary Space Modulator (See Looney Tunes, Marvin the Martian) would be needed to record just how fast this thought passed through my head. It was that fleeting.
With all due hesitation, I tell you, as I sat there looking at this engine, I noticed a spray can of “clear” paint and thought… Yes. For a blip in the time-space continuum, I was Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, thinking I could spray paint the engine clear and have a peek inside without having to even empty the oil.
I’d like to make really, super clear what a small amount of time this was…but I fear whatever prohibitively small time parcel I can come up with will be meaningless to you now.
And if that's not enough to worry you – or more specifically – worry my children who have likely inherited this predisposition. In the early ‘90s, the Shadow and I lived in upstate New York where we had a house that is now a parking lot. While working on said house I took off a light switch plate to reveal some bare wires. I said to my lovely bride, “be careful not to do this (touch the wires) when you turn off the switch.”
It’s important to realize that I have some French-Canadian blood in me and the urge to use my hands while communicating is beyond my control. As I was warning my good wife, I was showing her what not to do – thereby, of course, ACTUALLY grabbing both (very live) wires on either side of the switch.
Whatever few and small faults the Shadow may have, she heeded my advice and never did touch those wires as the resultant piece of French-Canadian bacon that was her husband twitched on the floor.
You’ll note at the beginning of this post I said I was among the top 7% of educated Americans. I did not say among the top 7% of the smartest Americans.
It's an important distinction.
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