In the comments of my last post, Tammy asked whether being written up for a broken speedometer was a legitimate write-up in the Army. Sister, you have no idea. Yes, they can write you up for a broken car. Their theory (from what I was told) is that if a soldier has a car, they are required to keep it in working condition. Soldiers are supposed to be fine, upstanding citizens who set the example - they don't want soldiers getting tickets or causing wrecks.
Just as there's 101 ways to get out of the Army, there's also about 502 ways to get put out of the Army. My favorite is the inheritance one. If a soldier inherits (or wins) a lot of money (I believe the cutoff number is somewhere around $100,000), they will be put out of the military with an honorable discharge. The thinking is - with that much money, they have no incentive to put up with the bullshit one has to put up with in the military.
Your family also needs to be example-setting, upstanding citizens. I had a friend who was put out because his wife was a complete F'up. They were living in base housing and she was a pothead. She'd get loaded and go to the Shoppette (military version of 7/11). One time she went for her munchies and apparently reeked of weed badly enough to have the clerk call the MP's on her. They pulled her over on her way home and she got busted for DUI. It was the last straw for the soldier's CO. Soldier was put out. It was my understanding it was a sort of "You can take this honorable discharge and get out or we'll put you out with a dishonorable discharge" situation. Sucked for him because he was actually a really good soldier who just married wrong.
Usually, if you're a good soldier, they don't much care what your private life is like. That's where the cop out of "don't ask, don't tell" often comes in to play. Of the 15 women on the Women's Medac Softball Team at Ft. Huachuca, I was one of 2 1/2 who were straight. (Evelyn's theory was, "Why limit yourself?" Why indeed, Ev.) The Army does not care. But if they need a reason to put you out....
Ditto for writing bad checks. And having a car that doesn't work. And failing the college courses you chose to take. And being consistently late. And a hundred other ways if they feel you're not up to par.
Have I ever told y'all why I joined the military? It's a long story involving borderline homelessness and a severe lack of college money.
So there I was....
We'll stick with the second reason for now. I was going to Fresno State as a Dance Major. I was in Dance all through high school and that's what I wanted to do with my life. I was running out of money and had no real options. I called one of my best friend's from high school, David, and asked him about the military. (He was an officer in the Army. Still is - he's currently a Major in the Armor Division and just came back from Saudi Arabia this past July.) The first thing he said was, "You're going to hate it." (I wasn't exactly known for conformity.) I said, "I know but what choice do I have??"
He came over and schooled me about the military. He said the first thing I had to do was take the ASVAB. I don't know what it stands for but it's sort of like SAT's for the military. He said after the ASVAB, the recruiter would take me to a computer where I'd pick my job. He told me that recruiters have quotas they need to fill and they have certain jobs they need to fill more then others. "This," he said, "means that They. LIE. A lot. Use your head and see if what they are saying makes any sense." He insisted that I pick a medical or dental job. He said, "Medical is not real Army. Not as much in the old days, but there's a higher level of education and a much more laid back feel." He also told me about Basic Training. He told me about Shock Treatment (we'll cover that in a moment) and then he said I'd be fine. "Ruth, they can't lay a hand on you. All they can do anymore is yell at you and try to make you feel like shit. It's all a head game - just don't play." Once he told me that, I knew I could handle it. They can yell all they like, it ain't gonna bother me as long as I know they can't hit me. What do I care if some stranger I'll only have to deal with for 8 weeks yells at me?
I took the ASVAB. There's a lot of "school learnin' stuff" (as the recruiter told me) but there's also sections where they test for different skills - I remember a section with pictures of gears and you had to figure out which way they were going to turn. It's impossible to get 100% on the ASVAB - it's designed that way. If I remember right, I was told it involves the code section, it's too long for anyone to actually finish. If someone gets 100%, they know that person cheated. I got 97%.
The recruiter said with a 97% I could choose any job I wanted. Then he starts showing me cook and truck driver jobs. I looked at him and said, "If I can choose any job I want, why would I choose cook or truck driver? Let's see the medical jobs." He pulled up medic. Dave warned me about the medic job. It's one of the crappiest jobs in the military (albeit, one of the most important). It's shift work and shit work and blood and cleaning bed pans. I don't do blood. I'd rather not deal with bed pans. But it was a short school and since I was only joining to be in the Reserves, I wanted as short a school as possible so I could get back to "real" school as soon as possible. They had a slot for me in Basic but nothing in AIT (that's where the Army teaches the job you picked). So we moved on and the recruiter pulled up OR tech. OR. Operating Room. I looked at him and said very slowly, since obviously he wasn't getting it, "I. Don't. Do. Blood." He said, "Oh, no, it's not like that. You're no where near the table. You mostly sterilize the instruments and if you are in the OR, you stand about a foot away from the table and just hand the Dr.'s the instruments." I looked at him incredulously, "97%, remember? I'm not stupid. What else do you have?"
So we eventually settled on Optician. Short school, I'd be back by Fall semester. Had I known my very near future, I would've picked a better job, like Pharmacy Tech or something. I didn't. I had a delayed entry so I could finish out the Fall semester I was currently in. Fall semester - 1990. I was to leave for Basic training the following March.
Fall 1990. Ringin' any bells? The day after I signed my final paperwork for the Army is the day America invaded Kuwait. The Gulf war. I couldn't believe my luck.
It worked out OK, though. With my delayed entry, by the time I graduated Basic Training, the Gulf War was over. phew!
So Basic Training. (For avoiding-carpal-tunnel-while-typing, I'm going to call it BT) First they send me to the wrong place. I was flown to Ft. Dix, NJ. The other recruits and myself were trundled off to Reception. When we got there, the drills were looking at me as if they'd never seen a woman before. Apparently it had been awhile since Ft. Dix hadn't taken female recruits for the past 3 months. The Army changes its mind a lot - coed Basic Training, not coed. Not only was Ft. Dix's BT no longer coed, they weren't training any females on the entire base! The only females on base were active duty soldiers doing there jobs. I spent the night there and at dinner that night and breakfast the morning I left, all eyes were on me. The drills kept barking at the soldiers to look at their food. Awkward.
I was then flown to Ft. Jackson, SC. So happy to leave Ft. Dix. I got there and left there when it was dark and holy crap was it cold - in March! At BT, you spend a week in reception. They process you with paperwork, paperwork, shots, paperwork, physical, paperwork, get your uniforms, paperwork. Oh, and then there's the paperwork. But it's a party! There's drill sgt.'s but they're all laid back and you have a regular sgt. who's assigned to your squad and takes you everywhere. They practice a little bit of marching but it's just to see how lame you are at it, nothing real serious.
After that first week, they put the recruits on one bus and their duffel bags stuffed full of brand new uniforms, boots, canteens, etc. onto a separate truck. Once you get to where your actual barracks/training site will be, the bus stops. Then the Shock Treatment begins. As I said, David warned me about this so I wasn't shocked and found the whole thing pretty funny.
A drill sgt. comes on the bus and starts shouting at everyone. It's a huge cluster fuck from there. There's drill's shouting, you have to run from one end of the barracks sidewalk, where the bus is to the other (about a city block), where the truck is. All the duffel bags were being dumped onto the ground. You have to find your duffel out of the hundred or so on the ground, find where your squad is (there's 4 in a platoon with about 25-30 women per), find a place in line then stand still while the drill's tear into you. The girls who were crying got reamed. The girl next to me apparently found it as funny as I did and started laughing. The drill came and was screaming and spit-yelling in her face. Literally. The brim of his drill sgt. hat was touching her forehead. I could smell his breath from where I was standing. Ew. She stopped laughing. I was trying so hard not to bust a gut, I almost peed.
I've got so many memories of Basic Training but this post is getting over long as it is. Again. Maybe I'll start a Military Monday and write some memoiries (not misspelled - I like making up new words).
The point of all this is here...
The Army is the irony of my life. I joined to get college money for my Dance Major. In Reception, they gave me boots that were a half size too small and told me they'd stretch. They didn't stretch, they just caused nerve damage. When I went back to school, I couldn't go on toe anymore and had to give up dance. When you think about it, it's actually kind of funny! It's the only reason I went in and then I couldn't do it anymore because I went it.
Of course, it wasn't funny at the time. I was 21 and it was devastating and all very dramatic. I went back to the Army and said I wanted to go Active Duty (I'd only joined the Reserves, remember) - I figured I needed time to develop a new plan for my life and if I went Active Duty, I'd get twice the college money in half the time. I obviously wasn't thinking too straight since "half the time" also meant full time - Army 24/7. I said I wanted to get as far away as possible, so wanted to go to Korea. I'd been to Europe on a trip with some classmates the summer between my Junior and Senior year and figured I'd seen it in the 6 weeks we were there. (What a schmo I was!) The recruiters told me all they had for my job was Germany. I sighed and snapped, "Fine." Yeah, fine - I had the time of my life while stationed for 2 years in Germany! They made me take the ASVAB again, since they'd lost my test scores from the year before. I got a 98% and those idiots were all impressed. I reminded them, "I just took this a year ago. It's. the. same. test. Not like I memorized it but, come on!" After that, I was on my way to the next 4 years of my life.
The way I found out about the nerve damage was pretty funny, too. I was gimping down the hall and the drill saw me. She was the only female drill in our platoon and was small, wiry and hard as nails. She said, "RIGGS - get over here." I was in my pajamas (in BT, that's your PT outfit) and said, "I gotta go to the bathroom." She was at one end of the long hall and the bathroom was at the other. I was in the middle. She yelled, "Come here." I knew she was wondering why I was limping but I wasn't about to tell her. If you have to go to Sick Call for too long, you get "recycled" which means you have to start Basic Training all over. From the beginning. It was week 4 of 8 when she spotted me. I said, "After I pee." and started run-gimping down the hall. She was chasing after me and quickly overcame me.
Drill: What's wrong with you?
Me: Nothing.
Drill: Don't lie soldier, is it your leg?
Me: No
Drill: Soldier, I ain't here to play 20 questions with you.
Me: (finally breaking and bursting into tears. It's the first time I've cried during BT) My feet.
Drill: (looking alarmed at my tears) Let me see them.
Me: No. I'm fine.
Drill: I'm not going to ask again.
I took off my socks and showed her my feet. She actually gasped. The bottoms were completely black and blue with bruises. The tops of my toes were also bruised. "It's really not that bad," I lied. She asked what the hell happened and I told her I didn't know but I suspected it was from my boots being too small. She asked why I hadn't told them the boots were too small. I said, "I did ask for bigger boots at reception. When they gave me my pair, I told them they were too small. The guy said to stop complaining and that they'd stretch. I guess they haven't." She laughed and said, "I guess not. I'm sending you to Sick Call."
I almost started crying again and begged her not to. I told her it wasn't so bad and if she just got me boots that fit, I was sure they'd heal quickly. She reluctantly sent me anyway and, so I wouldn't get recycled, I lied like crazy to the doc's when I was there. She got me proper fitting boots. The bruises healed but the nerve damage never has. To this day, if I wear shoes that are too tight around the toes, the nerves in my toes crack and it feels like they are being electrocuted.
Don't feel bad for me. When the subject comes up and people hear this story, they get all sorry for me. Shit happens. I don't regret a thing in my life. I had the best time in Germany, I had the crazy Major at Ft. Huachuca, I ended up in Tucson where I met my husband and had my kids!
That's just the way it goes, Ruth!
Showing posts with label So There I Was.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label So There I Was.... Show all posts
Monday, November 24, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Reason I Got Out
I recently got reconnected with someone who was very good to me while I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. She's one of my favorite people - ever! When I was getting sent to Ft. Huachuca (my time in Germany being, sadly, over), she informed me that I was going to have Major Palmer as my CO. She warned me that Palmer hates tardiness (I was always late) and to watch out because Palmer was rumored to be a bit weird.
My friend in Germany had no idea. I promised her I'd tell all so here it is. Grab a snack.
So there I was...
stationed at Ft. Huachuca, I had the worst CO (commanding officer) ever. Well, at least in my limited 5 year military experience. She was the second worst boss I've had in all the jobs I've done. (Someday, I'll tell y'all about the worst.)
Major Cindy Palmer. I hope she googles her name and reads this someday. Not that she'll care.
Whenever you get to a new base, it's usually best to get a bank account on that base and have your direct deposit go there. Makes money access so much easier. I was at the bank on Ft. Huachuca with my boyfriend, Aaron. This family came in and signed in to wait (just like I had) and sat across the room from us. Aaron and I looked at each other with decidedly WTF?? looks on our faces.
The family was very tall. The husband and wife were well over 6' and the 2 boys were as tall as me and taller (not saying much there - I'm 5'2"). That's not what we thought was so strange. The strange part - they were all dressed the same. Same exact madras plaid shirts, same exact khaki, knee-length cargo shorts, even the same damn shoes! White keds. Very strange.
So I get to work the next day at the eye clinic for the hospital (I was an optician - screened patients for the Optometrists). I get my "welcome to the base" briefing from my new NCO (non-commissioned officer in charge, i.e., my Sergeant). It went a little something like this:
"If it's poisonous and lives in North America it's here - to include water moccasins and the brown recluse spider. Hydrate or die." I said, "Sounds like a lovely place." (I had a run-in with a brown recluse shortly before I got out of the Army. You can read that adventure here.)
I was given a tour of our meager offices and then introduced to the staff on hand. I was told that there was going to be a new Major and that she would be there the next day. The next day came and guess who my new Major was. Yea. The crazy lady with the family that all wears the same outfit.
I was stuck with her for the 2 years before I got out of the Army. She's the reason, the very specific reason, I know of that at least 3 other people gave saying, "yea, that's enough Army for me". She wasn't the only reason I got out (as the title of this post implies) but she was a big help. Maybe I should actually thank her for being such a bitch that it woke me up to the truth. The truth of my having become complaisant to the idea of staying in the cocoon that the military becomes for so many people. People like me who originally joined just for college money.
She was uberchristian yet seemed to never get enough of other people's business. Including the tragedy and business of strangers - she couldn't get enough true crime books. She once got caught in the clinic next to ours when we were moved to the new wing of the hospital. That clinic was the OB/GYN clinic and they kept their records in a small room locked with a key. She was caught in that room going through people's test results. Pregnancy, STD, and Pap results.
We could hear the Major from that clinic ripping her a new one through 3 closed doors. Of course, nothing happened to Palmer, other then being told to find her OB/GYN care downtown somewhere, at her own expense. Had she not been a Major, I'm sure criminal action would've been taken, but such is the Army.
Just as I'm sure, had she not been an Optometrist in the Army, she would not have had a successful practice. She was always a minimum of 20 minutes behind (usually, more like an hour). Even Cpt. J once said, "There's no way she'd make it in the real world." And she was a horrible leader. One of my duties was to keep the clinic stocked with whatever we needed. Palmer would come raging out of her office, yelling at me (oftentimes in front of patients or anyone else who happened to be standing there) because she was out of something. After the 4th or 5th time, I raised my voice back at her, "What am I supposed to do? There was no psychic class in my training. You won't let me into your office to take inventory. You don't tell me when you're low on things, you just yell at me when you're out. So what am I supposed to do?" After that, she started giving me lists of what she needed. I should've stood up for myself much earlier!
The first year there, she had a Christmas party at her house. She and I were stationed there in July and in that short 6 months, she'd already alienated everyone in the clinic. But, she's our CO, so we gotta go, right?
My captain in the clinic was a female, we'll call her J. J had a wife (D) and everyone knew it. My NCO also was a female with a girlfriend and everyone knew it. No one really cared. They were excellent soldiers (I was not. At all.) and so no one cared. The day of the party, I was hanging out with our receptionist guy (a retiree named Stu) and Palmer came up front to hang out, too. She was making small talk and then asks, "Is J. coming tonight?" Stu and I didn't know. Then she says, "Is she bringing D?" Again, we didn't know. Then she asks, "So.... what is D? Like her roommate or.... what?" Stu whips his chair around and is suddenly very busy at his computer.
I look at her dumbfounded and when I find my voice (silenced by my low rank and my desire to keep the college money I'm in the Army for), I say, "Well... I don't know. I mean, it's really none of my business and if you have any questions about Cpt. J, you. should. really. Ask. Her." And I mosy on to my desk in the back office. What a bitch!
But wait, there's more....
At the Ft. Huachuca optometry clinic, one of our duties was to go to Yuma, AZ once a month. They had a tiny base in this tiny, desert, OK - shithole of a town and it wasn't big enough to warrant their own Optometrist. So we went. One Optometrist and one Optician. No one ever wanted to go with Palmer because, well, as I've said, she'd pretty well alienated everyone she ever met.
But it was an extra coupla hundred bucks TDY pay to go, so I usually went with Palmer because I could pretty well let her craziness roll off me. Or so I thought.
The first time we went together, we drove. I didn't bring my Walkman because I didn't want to be rude. I listened to Christian talk radio for FIVE HOURS in that car. At one point, I almost opened the door and jumped onto the freeway going 75 miles an hour. yea.
On the way back, I settled in to sleep through the next 5 hours of Christian talk radio. Palmer asked me to stay awake with her because she was sleepy. sigh. I busted out my book, thinking, "I may have to make sure you stay awake but I don't have to entertain you." Wrong again. Only her form of entertainment was to rip into me about the books I read. I love the scary stuff! She said, "How can you read that trash?? It's so graphic and disgusting!" I asked, "Well, how do you know that if you've never read it?" (Not that she was wrong mind you, just bein' snarky.)
Palmer: I used to read that stuff when I was younger and I know how graphic it is. You shouldn't fill your mind with such filth.
Me: (eyeing that car door handle again) Well, you read true crime books all the time. Those are way more graphic then anything I read.
Palmer: That's different. Those are real.
Me: (turning red with incredulity) Doesn't that make them WORSE?!?
We didn't talk much after that.
The next time... we flew.
Each base had it's own tiny airport and we flew in these little puddlejumpers. Her family gave her a ride to the airport and was hanging around until she left. Her boys were 8 and 11 (this was in 1995-ish) and the younger, as I said, was as tall as me. (Palmer was a little over 6' and her husband was around 6'6".) At one point the younger walked up to her and put his arms up. I was thinking, 'How sweet, he wants a hug'. Uh-uh. She picked him up and carried him around for almost 20 minutes! The 2 guys on staff and myself couldn't stop staring. I wanted to scream at her, "Woman, he's eight years old - put him DOWN!!"
I'll get more into the way they treated their kids in a moment.
When we flew back from this particular trip to Yuma, she asked me if I could give her a ride home. Her husband had taken the boys on a bike ride to the OK Corral in Tombstone. (That's about a 30 minute drive from Ft. Huachuca, btw). I reluctantly agreed. What else was I going to do? It was almost comical to watch her fold her body into my little '66 Mustang. Even more so since my passenger side door didn't work and she had to go through from the driver's side. Anyway, she managed to get in and I gave her a ride home.
The next day, she had me written up because my speedometer didn't work.
That was the last straw for me. I refused to sign the negative write up and took it to the Hospital's First Sergeant. I had been keeping a record of my negative write-ups, which were many. I showed him the timeline I'd drawn out and said, "You notice the only time I get written up is when it's just Palmer and me? Whenever Cpt. J and my NCO are in Yuma or when they are on leave - that's when I get written up. And this last time? The only reason she knew my speedometer was broken was because she asked me for a ride home and I gave her one." My First Sergeant (who was about 40+ years old) went, "Nuh UH" just like a little kid. To which I replied, "Yuh huh!" He tossed that last write-up out and I started paperwork to get out of the Army.
So. Her kids.
These poor kids were home-schooled. Now I don't want a bunch of crappy comments on the joys of home schooling and how I don't know anything about it. That's true, I don't. Two of my favorite bloggers home school. I'm only giving an account of my personal and very limited experience with home schoolers.
Yea, they were home-schooled by her husband who was a stay-at-home dad. They had absolutely no contact with other children. Palmer once told me how she told the lady across the street to keep their kids home since they were a bad influence. The Palmers went to a Korean Baptist Church - the Palmers are not Korean and one of the sons told me that most of the kids there don't speak English. In the Ft. Huachuca area, if you don't have cable, you don't have TV - the mountains are too close and there's no reception. They didn't have cable and other then the occasional Disney rental, they had no TV.
From what I've read around the web, I hear that home schoolers have a reputation for limited social contact and being very sheltered, but even this was taking it to the extreme. I always figured those poor boys were going to end up in a watch tower with a rifle when they got the culture shock of experiencing the real world for the first time. They'd be about 21 and 24 now. I wonder what's become of them.
So there you have it. My last experience with a crazy Army person. There are other crazy experiences/people I encountered in my brief time in the military but those are for another day.
So happy to be out, Ruth!
My friend in Germany had no idea. I promised her I'd tell all so here it is. Grab a snack.
So there I was...
stationed at Ft. Huachuca, I had the worst CO (commanding officer) ever. Well, at least in my limited 5 year military experience. She was the second worst boss I've had in all the jobs I've done. (Someday, I'll tell y'all about the worst.)
Major Cindy Palmer. I hope she googles her name and reads this someday. Not that she'll care.
Whenever you get to a new base, it's usually best to get a bank account on that base and have your direct deposit go there. Makes money access so much easier. I was at the bank on Ft. Huachuca with my boyfriend, Aaron. This family came in and signed in to wait (just like I had) and sat across the room from us. Aaron and I looked at each other with decidedly WTF?? looks on our faces.
The family was very tall. The husband and wife were well over 6' and the 2 boys were as tall as me and taller (not saying much there - I'm 5'2"). That's not what we thought was so strange. The strange part - they were all dressed the same. Same exact madras plaid shirts, same exact khaki, knee-length cargo shorts, even the same damn shoes! White keds. Very strange.
So I get to work the next day at the eye clinic for the hospital (I was an optician - screened patients for the Optometrists). I get my "welcome to the base" briefing from my new NCO (non-commissioned officer in charge, i.e., my Sergeant). It went a little something like this:
"If it's poisonous and lives in North America it's here - to include water moccasins and the brown recluse spider. Hydrate or die." I said, "Sounds like a lovely place." (I had a run-in with a brown recluse shortly before I got out of the Army. You can read that adventure here.)
I was given a tour of our meager offices and then introduced to the staff on hand. I was told that there was going to be a new Major and that she would be there the next day. The next day came and guess who my new Major was. Yea. The crazy lady with the family that all wears the same outfit.
I was stuck with her for the 2 years before I got out of the Army. She's the reason, the very specific reason, I know of that at least 3 other people gave saying, "yea, that's enough Army for me". She wasn't the only reason I got out (as the title of this post implies) but she was a big help. Maybe I should actually thank her for being such a bitch that it woke me up to the truth. The truth of my having become complaisant to the idea of staying in the cocoon that the military becomes for so many people. People like me who originally joined just for college money.
She was uberchristian yet seemed to never get enough of other people's business. Including the tragedy and business of strangers - she couldn't get enough true crime books. She once got caught in the clinic next to ours when we were moved to the new wing of the hospital. That clinic was the OB/GYN clinic and they kept their records in a small room locked with a key. She was caught in that room going through people's test results. Pregnancy, STD, and Pap results.
We could hear the Major from that clinic ripping her a new one through 3 closed doors. Of course, nothing happened to Palmer, other then being told to find her OB/GYN care downtown somewhere, at her own expense. Had she not been a Major, I'm sure criminal action would've been taken, but such is the Army.
Just as I'm sure, had she not been an Optometrist in the Army, she would not have had a successful practice. She was always a minimum of 20 minutes behind (usually, more like an hour). Even Cpt. J once said, "There's no way she'd make it in the real world." And she was a horrible leader. One of my duties was to keep the clinic stocked with whatever we needed. Palmer would come raging out of her office, yelling at me (oftentimes in front of patients or anyone else who happened to be standing there) because she was out of something. After the 4th or 5th time, I raised my voice back at her, "What am I supposed to do? There was no psychic class in my training. You won't let me into your office to take inventory. You don't tell me when you're low on things, you just yell at me when you're out. So what am I supposed to do?" After that, she started giving me lists of what she needed. I should've stood up for myself much earlier!
The first year there, she had a Christmas party at her house. She and I were stationed there in July and in that short 6 months, she'd already alienated everyone in the clinic. But, she's our CO, so we gotta go, right?
My captain in the clinic was a female, we'll call her J. J had a wife (D) and everyone knew it. My NCO also was a female with a girlfriend and everyone knew it. No one really cared. They were excellent soldiers (I was not. At all.) and so no one cared. The day of the party, I was hanging out with our receptionist guy (a retiree named Stu) and Palmer came up front to hang out, too. She was making small talk and then asks, "Is J. coming tonight?" Stu and I didn't know. Then she says, "Is she bringing D?" Again, we didn't know. Then she asks, "So.... what is D? Like her roommate or.... what?" Stu whips his chair around and is suddenly very busy at his computer.
I look at her dumbfounded and when I find my voice (silenced by my low rank and my desire to keep the college money I'm in the Army for), I say, "Well... I don't know. I mean, it's really none of my business and if you have any questions about Cpt. J, you. should. really. Ask. Her." And I mosy on to my desk in the back office. What a bitch!
But wait, there's more....
At the Ft. Huachuca optometry clinic, one of our duties was to go to Yuma, AZ once a month. They had a tiny base in this tiny, desert, OK - shithole of a town and it wasn't big enough to warrant their own Optometrist. So we went. One Optometrist and one Optician. No one ever wanted to go with Palmer because, well, as I've said, she'd pretty well alienated everyone she ever met.
But it was an extra coupla hundred bucks TDY pay to go, so I usually went with Palmer because I could pretty well let her craziness roll off me. Or so I thought.
The first time we went together, we drove. I didn't bring my Walkman because I didn't want to be rude. I listened to Christian talk radio for FIVE HOURS in that car. At one point, I almost opened the door and jumped onto the freeway going 75 miles an hour. yea.
On the way back, I settled in to sleep through the next 5 hours of Christian talk radio. Palmer asked me to stay awake with her because she was sleepy. sigh. I busted out my book, thinking, "I may have to make sure you stay awake but I don't have to entertain you." Wrong again. Only her form of entertainment was to rip into me about the books I read. I love the scary stuff! She said, "How can you read that trash?? It's so graphic and disgusting!" I asked, "Well, how do you know that if you've never read it?" (Not that she was wrong mind you, just bein' snarky.)
Palmer: I used to read that stuff when I was younger and I know how graphic it is. You shouldn't fill your mind with such filth.
Me: (eyeing that car door handle again) Well, you read true crime books all the time. Those are way more graphic then anything I read.
Palmer: That's different. Those are real.
Me: (turning red with incredulity) Doesn't that make them WORSE?!?
We didn't talk much after that.
The next time... we flew.
Each base had it's own tiny airport and we flew in these little puddlejumpers. Her family gave her a ride to the airport and was hanging around until she left. Her boys were 8 and 11 (this was in 1995-ish) and the younger, as I said, was as tall as me. (Palmer was a little over 6' and her husband was around 6'6".) At one point the younger walked up to her and put his arms up. I was thinking, 'How sweet, he wants a hug'. Uh-uh. She picked him up and carried him around for almost 20 minutes! The 2 guys on staff and myself couldn't stop staring. I wanted to scream at her, "Woman, he's eight years old - put him DOWN!!"
I'll get more into the way they treated their kids in a moment.
When we flew back from this particular trip to Yuma, she asked me if I could give her a ride home. Her husband had taken the boys on a bike ride to the OK Corral in Tombstone. (That's about a 30 minute drive from Ft. Huachuca, btw). I reluctantly agreed. What else was I going to do? It was almost comical to watch her fold her body into my little '66 Mustang. Even more so since my passenger side door didn't work and she had to go through from the driver's side. Anyway, she managed to get in and I gave her a ride home.
The next day, she had me written up because my speedometer didn't work.
That was the last straw for me. I refused to sign the negative write up and took it to the Hospital's First Sergeant. I had been keeping a record of my negative write-ups, which were many. I showed him the timeline I'd drawn out and said, "You notice the only time I get written up is when it's just Palmer and me? Whenever Cpt. J and my NCO are in Yuma or when they are on leave - that's when I get written up. And this last time? The only reason she knew my speedometer was broken was because she asked me for a ride home and I gave her one." My First Sergeant (who was about 40+ years old) went, "Nuh UH" just like a little kid. To which I replied, "Yuh huh!" He tossed that last write-up out and I started paperwork to get out of the Army.
So. Her kids.
These poor kids were home-schooled. Now I don't want a bunch of crappy comments on the joys of home schooling and how I don't know anything about it. That's true, I don't. Two of my favorite bloggers home school. I'm only giving an account of my personal and very limited experience with home schoolers.
Yea, they were home-schooled by her husband who was a stay-at-home dad. They had absolutely no contact with other children. Palmer once told me how she told the lady across the street to keep their kids home since they were a bad influence. The Palmers went to a Korean Baptist Church - the Palmers are not Korean and one of the sons told me that most of the kids there don't speak English. In the Ft. Huachuca area, if you don't have cable, you don't have TV - the mountains are too close and there's no reception. They didn't have cable and other then the occasional Disney rental, they had no TV.
From what I've read around the web, I hear that home schoolers have a reputation for limited social contact and being very sheltered, but even this was taking it to the extreme. I always figured those poor boys were going to end up in a watch tower with a rifle when they got the culture shock of experiencing the real world for the first time. They'd be about 21 and 24 now. I wonder what's become of them.
So there you have it. My last experience with a crazy Army person. There are other crazy experiences/people I encountered in my brief time in the military but those are for another day.
So happy to be out, Ruth!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Stinker Kid
Had this random memory this morning:
So there I was...
At the park with T and D2. D2 was only a couple of months old so T was around 2 years old. We were at our playgroup and we'd been there for almost 2 hours.
Now T was always entirely too social. I got him a red bucket hat because it was easy to spot and that kid would be far afield in about 2 seconds. He would also take people by the hand, even before he could talk, and pull them around to show them something. Strangers. Heart attacks for me every time.
So, as I said, we'd been there for quite some time. I couldn't exactly chase him around like usual as I had D2 in the stroller and anyway, I was exhausted, sleepless and done for the day. I told him the obligatory 5 minute warning that we were leaving. After about 2 minutes, I told him it was time to go. He didn't want to leave.
I ended up carrying him a la Calvin & Hobbes mom (sideways) and he was kicking and hollering. Guess what he was hollering.
"Help me! Help me!"
Other parents were looking at me in a suspicious way and thankfully some of the moms in my group helped out by saying, "It's OK, T - mommy's just taking you home."
I remember wondering why I'd had kids at all. I also remember whispering to myself, "Ooooh T. You are so dead when we get home.
I took us home and put everyone to bed.
Love those boys, Ruth!
My latest Contest here.
So there I was...
At the park with T and D2. D2 was only a couple of months old so T was around 2 years old. We were at our playgroup and we'd been there for almost 2 hours.
Now T was always entirely too social. I got him a red bucket hat because it was easy to spot and that kid would be far afield in about 2 seconds. He would also take people by the hand, even before he could talk, and pull them around to show them something. Strangers. Heart attacks for me every time.
So, as I said, we'd been there for quite some time. I couldn't exactly chase him around like usual as I had D2 in the stroller and anyway, I was exhausted, sleepless and done for the day. I told him the obligatory 5 minute warning that we were leaving. After about 2 minutes, I told him it was time to go. He didn't want to leave.
I ended up carrying him a la Calvin & Hobbes mom (sideways) and he was kicking and hollering. Guess what he was hollering.
"Help me! Help me!"
Other parents were looking at me in a suspicious way and thankfully some of the moms in my group helped out by saying, "It's OK, T - mommy's just taking you home."
I remember wondering why I'd had kids at all. I also remember whispering to myself, "Ooooh T. You are so dead when we get home.
I took us home and put everyone to bed.
Love those boys, Ruth!
My latest Contest here.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Didja Hear Me On The Radio?
It was Tuesday morning and I was driving back from dropping my mom off at the airport. (BTW, her visit was fine - no casualties. This time... haha)
The morning radio station (100.3 in Denver) was blathering on about how crappy their show had been and it was up to the Last Caller of the Day to make it all better. They said if anyone was conversational or had a good story to call in and the best caller would win 4 tickets to Disney on Ice.
Well, if y'all've been here before, you know I gots some stories (although, how good they are is pretty subjective). So I called in. The call-screener (Jeremy) asked what I had to say. Well, first he asked my name (Ruth) and then asked if people called me Baby. I sighed and said my usual line for such lameness, "Wow! That's the first time I've ever heard that one again." We hardee-har-har'd over that and then he asked what I had to say. I told him I could tell about the time Madeline Albright's head Secret Service guy nearly snapped my arm in half because he messed up or I could tell this other story I had. He picked the other story and I was put on hold. For like 20 minutes! They let you listen in on everything that's going on and I got to hear the other callers they picked.
The first guy had bad luck and every car he'd ever owned would bust within a year. The next caller talked about how her inlaws were visiting for a week and that was too long. The third caller told how her boyfriend kept her up til past midnight last nite so he could sing her Happy Birthday because today was her birthday. Then it was my turn and I told my story and they were all bustin' on me (which they'd warned about when they told people to call in) and I was laughing and vehement in my position and it was fun! Then the last, last caller told about some bottle of wine she took to a party and everyone made a big fuss over it and she didn't know why.
Anyway, they picked me! I won 4 tickets to Disney on Ice! (Well, actually, I won 4 vouchers that I've got to go pick up, then try to get tickets on days they aren't sold out.)
So here's the story I told. Get a snack...
So There I Was...
Stationed in Germany. The second base I was sent to, in Schweinfurt. I'd had my Vespa Scooter shipped to me when I was sent to Germany originally but it took almost 8 months to get it to me and by then, I'd been sent to Schweinfurt (which translates to Pig Town, by the way). So the first day I'm on the road with my little Vespa. Tooling around town, having a nice ride. I'm wearing my usual garb - knee length denim shorts, t-shirt - plus my obnoxiously white helmet (safety first!). I'm going down some random street and this particular street has 2 lanes. The right lane has the option of going straight or curving off to the left alongside the left lane. I'd been down that street veering left, so wanted to go straight and see what was down there. There were 2 young women on bikes ahead of me. They were in the bike lane and I was passing them. I passed the one and when I was passing the girl in front, she up and tried to turn left right in front of me! I was halfway past her already and there was no stopping, so I ran her over!! To this day, I don't know how she didn't notice me going past her! That scooter had an incredibly loud engine - like a mini diesel (or a giant wasp).
She fell and I fell. When I fell, my head (thankfully helmeted) bounced on the road and I slid about 4 feet with the scooter on my left leg. (I remember, as I was sliding, thinking, this is going to hurt!) I lay there for a few seconds, dazed. The German girl jumped up and started in on me and I wasn't even up yet. She was "sprikkin' the sprech" as we said back then (speaking in German) and when I got up and said, "What? Slow down." (I spoke some German but not that fast.) She was saying sorry until I took my helmet off and she heard me speaking English and saw my ugly Army issue glasses. Then she started speaking in English, too but changed her mind about the situation, "My shirt, my shoes, my glasses, my bike - you must pay for everything." I looked at her like she was crazy, "Bitch please, this is not California! I'm not paying for a damn thing - you didn't signal!"
I'd picked up my scooter and left it in the middle of the road where it landed (there was plenty of room to maneuver a car around it). This crazy girl was still trying to get me to give her my name and rank and unit and I told her we'd just wait and see what the Polizei said. We borrowed someone's phone and called the Polizei (and I also called Howie, my MP friend who spoke better German then I did). One car sat behind my scooter honking at me and I motioned him to just go around and he kept honking. I sat on my scooter looking at him angrily and motioning that I wasn't going to move and he'd just have to go around (as I said, there was plenty of room) and finally he did when the Polizei showed up. [The radio people were baggin' on me for using the word Polizei instead of police - but truly, there's a difference between German police and American - it's worth the distinction!]
Finally the police showed up and the girl was speaking in German to him and I asked them to use English please, or at least slow down so I could tell what they were saying. [Here the radio people started talking about how I was being an Ugly American. I didn't think I was, I just didn't want her telling the police something that wasn't true and how would I know if she did, because they were speaking their native tongue too fast for me to keep up??] The girl starts going off about how she didn't have to signal as that was the main street and the going forward part was just a side street.
Somewhere around here, my friend Howie shows up. He talks with the girl and the Polizei guy and then, as I'm standing there, bleeding, Howie looks at me and I can see from his face that things aren't going my was so much. I look at the main street and - Hooray! - "LOOK," I shout, "Look at that bus. It's signaling!! If the city bus has to signal, so does she." The Polizei guy sees it (well, they all do, actually) and ponders it and says I was right. He cites the girl with a ticket and tells me to go back to base. I didn't argue - Howie throws my scooter in his MP van and we get the hell out of there! (Another thing I always wondered about was the girl's friend. She just sort of faded into the background during this whole thing. And when her friend tried to elicit her help, she just put up her hands and stepped back. Another thing that made me feel I was in the right at the time.)
The radio people were calling me Ugly American (jokingly) and I was laughing about it. They were talking smack about not being in California. I explained that the German girl was all cool and apologetic until she saw the GI glasses and heard my English, then she saw her next big paycheck and went off! The California line just came out - I grew up in CA and it's so rife with frivolous litigation that her reaction just grated me wrong and made me instantly angry and defensive. I don't think I was being an Ugly American, I was just standing up for myself and not taking any shit from this gold-digger who really should've signaled. (What do y'all think? Be honest...)
So there you have it. That's actually one of the only accidents I've ever been in! When Howie dropped me at the base (the MP's lived in the basement and the medical staff lived on the 3rd floor of the same barracks), I walked over to our little tiny ER and told them what happened and showed them my leg. It was all road rashed from knee to ankle along my shin. I remember the nurse holding out the iodine scrub thing they use on road rash and saying, "You can do it or I can do it." I took her meaning and opted to do it myself - she would've been quick and efficient but I was gonna be much more gentle, I'm sure! It healed up really nicely, considering - no scars or anything!
Still don't feel Ugly about it, Ruth!
The morning radio station (100.3 in Denver) was blathering on about how crappy their show had been and it was up to the Last Caller of the Day to make it all better. They said if anyone was conversational or had a good story to call in and the best caller would win 4 tickets to Disney on Ice.
Well, if y'all've been here before, you know I gots some stories (although, how good they are is pretty subjective). So I called in. The call-screener (Jeremy) asked what I had to say. Well, first he asked my name (Ruth) and then asked if people called me Baby. I sighed and said my usual line for such lameness, "Wow! That's the first time I've ever heard that one again." We hardee-har-har'd over that and then he asked what I had to say. I told him I could tell about the time Madeline Albright's head Secret Service guy nearly snapped my arm in half because he messed up or I could tell this other story I had. He picked the other story and I was put on hold. For like 20 minutes! They let you listen in on everything that's going on and I got to hear the other callers they picked.
The first guy had bad luck and every car he'd ever owned would bust within a year. The next caller talked about how her inlaws were visiting for a week and that was too long. The third caller told how her boyfriend kept her up til past midnight last nite so he could sing her Happy Birthday because today was her birthday. Then it was my turn and I told my story and they were all bustin' on me (which they'd warned about when they told people to call in) and I was laughing and vehement in my position and it was fun! Then the last, last caller told about some bottle of wine she took to a party and everyone made a big fuss over it and she didn't know why.
Anyway, they picked me! I won 4 tickets to Disney on Ice! (Well, actually, I won 4 vouchers that I've got to go pick up, then try to get tickets on days they aren't sold out.)
So here's the story I told. Get a snack...
So There I Was...
Stationed in Germany. The second base I was sent to, in Schweinfurt. I'd had my Vespa Scooter shipped to me when I was sent to Germany originally but it took almost 8 months to get it to me and by then, I'd been sent to Schweinfurt (which translates to Pig Town, by the way). So the first day I'm on the road with my little Vespa. Tooling around town, having a nice ride. I'm wearing my usual garb - knee length denim shorts, t-shirt - plus my obnoxiously white helmet (safety first!). I'm going down some random street and this particular street has 2 lanes. The right lane has the option of going straight or curving off to the left alongside the left lane. I'd been down that street veering left, so wanted to go straight and see what was down there. There were 2 young women on bikes ahead of me. They were in the bike lane and I was passing them. I passed the one and when I was passing the girl in front, she up and tried to turn left right in front of me! I was halfway past her already and there was no stopping, so I ran her over!! To this day, I don't know how she didn't notice me going past her! That scooter had an incredibly loud engine - like a mini diesel (or a giant wasp).
She fell and I fell. When I fell, my head (thankfully helmeted) bounced on the road and I slid about 4 feet with the scooter on my left leg. (I remember, as I was sliding, thinking, this is going to hurt!) I lay there for a few seconds, dazed. The German girl jumped up and started in on me and I wasn't even up yet. She was "sprikkin' the sprech" as we said back then (speaking in German) and when I got up and said, "What? Slow down." (I spoke some German but not that fast.) She was saying sorry until I took my helmet off and she heard me speaking English and saw my ugly Army issue glasses. Then she started speaking in English, too but changed her mind about the situation, "My shirt, my shoes, my glasses, my bike - you must pay for everything." I looked at her like she was crazy, "Bitch please, this is not California! I'm not paying for a damn thing - you didn't signal!"
I'd picked up my scooter and left it in the middle of the road where it landed (there was plenty of room to maneuver a car around it). This crazy girl was still trying to get me to give her my name and rank and unit and I told her we'd just wait and see what the Polizei said. We borrowed someone's phone and called the Polizei (and I also called Howie, my MP friend who spoke better German then I did). One car sat behind my scooter honking at me and I motioned him to just go around and he kept honking. I sat on my scooter looking at him angrily and motioning that I wasn't going to move and he'd just have to go around (as I said, there was plenty of room) and finally he did when the Polizei showed up. [The radio people were baggin' on me for using the word Polizei instead of police - but truly, there's a difference between German police and American - it's worth the distinction!]
Finally the police showed up and the girl was speaking in German to him and I asked them to use English please, or at least slow down so I could tell what they were saying. [Here the radio people started talking about how I was being an Ugly American. I didn't think I was, I just didn't want her telling the police something that wasn't true and how would I know if she did, because they were speaking their native tongue too fast for me to keep up??] The girl starts going off about how she didn't have to signal as that was the main street and the going forward part was just a side street.
Somewhere around here, my friend Howie shows up. He talks with the girl and the Polizei guy and then, as I'm standing there, bleeding, Howie looks at me and I can see from his face that things aren't going my was so much. I look at the main street and - Hooray! - "LOOK," I shout, "Look at that bus. It's signaling!! If the city bus has to signal, so does she." The Polizei guy sees it (well, they all do, actually) and ponders it and says I was right. He cites the girl with a ticket and tells me to go back to base. I didn't argue - Howie throws my scooter in his MP van and we get the hell out of there! (Another thing I always wondered about was the girl's friend. She just sort of faded into the background during this whole thing. And when her friend tried to elicit her help, she just put up her hands and stepped back. Another thing that made me feel I was in the right at the time.)
The radio people were calling me Ugly American (jokingly) and I was laughing about it. They were talking smack about not being in California. I explained that the German girl was all cool and apologetic until she saw the GI glasses and heard my English, then she saw her next big paycheck and went off! The California line just came out - I grew up in CA and it's so rife with frivolous litigation that her reaction just grated me wrong and made me instantly angry and defensive. I don't think I was being an Ugly American, I was just standing up for myself and not taking any shit from this gold-digger who really should've signaled. (What do y'all think? Be honest...)
So there you have it. That's actually one of the only accidents I've ever been in! When Howie dropped me at the base (the MP's lived in the basement and the medical staff lived on the 3rd floor of the same barracks), I walked over to our little tiny ER and told them what happened and showed them my leg. It was all road rashed from knee to ankle along my shin. I remember the nurse holding out the iodine scrub thing they use on road rash and saying, "You can do it or I can do it." I took her meaning and opted to do it myself - she would've been quick and efficient but I was gonna be much more gentle, I'm sure! It healed up really nicely, considering - no scars or anything!
Still don't feel Ugly about it, Ruth!
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
I Should Really Learn To Count (or MY EYE!!)
I almost frogged my Mason Dixon nightie AGAIN!! I thought I had 10 more stitches on one side then the other.
I shit you not, friends, I counted at least 15 times. Stitch markers every 30 stitches and everything. I was just about to (burn it) pull the long side off and frog away when I saw that one stitch marker seemed a shorter distance then the others. I counted, yet again, and realized I'd marked at 20 sts instead of 30.
Someday, I'll learn to count to 30. sigh.
In other stupid news...
I recently pulled some batteries out of one of the many kid toys in this house. The batteries were leaking and I wouldn't let the boys throw them away (which is usually their job) because I didn't want them to have that acid on their hands. I washed my hands really well and an hour later rubbed my eye. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! It burned. So. Bad. What are you supposed to do to get that stuff off your hands? I did wash and quite thoroughly. That was 2 days ago and I'm still wary of touching my eyes!
I did the same thing a few years ago with arnica cream. It was given to me by a classmate in massage school after I sprained my ankle really bad. (Which would put it more like 10 years ago instead of a few.) Arnica is a type of pepper and the cream was more of an oil-based ointment which meant there was no getting that stuff off your fingers. It's amazing at making bruises go away but you have to wear gloves either to apply it or for the next few days until it wears off your skin! Another eye-burner, for sure. Ask me how I know.
Which makes me think of yet another eye story!
So There I Was....
sitting at my desk in the eye clinic in Germany. (I was an optician in the Army for 5 years. We screened the patients for the optometrists. Stationed in Germany for two years.) I look up at my little window where people check in and there's a young soldier standing there looking back at me with one completely blown pupil.
OHMIGOD!!!! I said. To myself. To him, I said, "I think we need to take you down to ER". You see, when one pupil is completely open like that and the other is normal size, it's a HUGE indicator of a serious head injury. And the boy was just standing there! Not talking and looking in at me, waiting for me to say something, I guess. I actually knew him. He was one of the medics for one of the signal corps at that base. They worked in the basement of our building when they weren't in the field.
Anyway, the boy told me that ER had sent him up to us and that it wasn't a head injury. Here's what happened:
In the gas masks that are issued to soldiers, there's a little side pocket that holds 2 0r 3 ampules of atropine. Atropine is a sedative (as I remember it) and if you're gassed before you can get your mask on, you're supposed to self-administer the atropine. You take off the cap, shove the needle in your thigh, hit the top to shoot the medicine in, then you stick the needle through your shirt pocket flap and bend the needle so it hangs there. Stick and Bend, Stick and Bend. It's something we all learn in Basic Training. You hang the empty ampules on your shirt so when someone finds you, they know how much you've already administered. Basically, if you're using the atropine, you're fucked. It's going to keep you comfortable and sedated so when the gas you were exposed to kicks in, either you won't feel it or you won't care that you're feeling it.
OK, the medics in the basement were going through all the gas masks and getting rid of the expired ampules. They were sticking and bending the full ampules onto squares of cardboard to send back to the manufacturer so they could get replacements. One of these ampules when stick and bended (?), popped open and shot this medic kid dead in the eye! He walked upstairs to our little ER and they sent him up to us.
I got him in to see the optometrist (Cpt. Renee Allison, where are you?) and she laughed her ass off! He asked, "Is there an anecdote?". That made her laugh even harder, "No. This is an anecdote. You mean antidote and the answer is still no. There is no antidote." She gave him quarters for 2 days (sent him home, basically) and gave him a prescription to wear sunglasses 24/7 for a week (yes, in the Army, you need permission for such things). She laughed for days over this. Easily amused, loved her!
That poor kid, though, eye all messed up, being laughed at and probably high as a kite. Come to think of it, maybe not so "poor kid" after all! Even with his eye all messed up and being laughed at, he was probably too high to care.
Good times, Ruth!
I shit you not, friends, I counted at least 15 times. Stitch markers every 30 stitches and everything. I was just about to (burn it) pull the long side off and frog away when I saw that one stitch marker seemed a shorter distance then the others. I counted, yet again, and realized I'd marked at 20 sts instead of 30.
Someday, I'll learn to count to 30. sigh.
In other stupid news...
I recently pulled some batteries out of one of the many kid toys in this house. The batteries were leaking and I wouldn't let the boys throw them away (which is usually their job) because I didn't want them to have that acid on their hands. I washed my hands really well and an hour later rubbed my eye. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! It burned. So. Bad. What are you supposed to do to get that stuff off your hands? I did wash and quite thoroughly. That was 2 days ago and I'm still wary of touching my eyes!
I did the same thing a few years ago with arnica cream. It was given to me by a classmate in massage school after I sprained my ankle really bad. (Which would put it more like 10 years ago instead of a few.) Arnica is a type of pepper and the cream was more of an oil-based ointment which meant there was no getting that stuff off your fingers. It's amazing at making bruises go away but you have to wear gloves either to apply it or for the next few days until it wears off your skin! Another eye-burner, for sure. Ask me how I know.
Which makes me think of yet another eye story!
So There I Was....
sitting at my desk in the eye clinic in Germany. (I was an optician in the Army for 5 years. We screened the patients for the optometrists. Stationed in Germany for two years.) I look up at my little window where people check in and there's a young soldier standing there looking back at me with one completely blown pupil.
OHMIGOD!!!! I said. To myself. To him, I said, "I think we need to take you down to ER". You see, when one pupil is completely open like that and the other is normal size, it's a HUGE indicator of a serious head injury. And the boy was just standing there! Not talking and looking in at me, waiting for me to say something, I guess. I actually knew him. He was one of the medics for one of the signal corps at that base. They worked in the basement of our building when they weren't in the field.
Anyway, the boy told me that ER had sent him up to us and that it wasn't a head injury. Here's what happened:
In the gas masks that are issued to soldiers, there's a little side pocket that holds 2 0r 3 ampules of atropine. Atropine is a sedative (as I remember it) and if you're gassed before you can get your mask on, you're supposed to self-administer the atropine. You take off the cap, shove the needle in your thigh, hit the top to shoot the medicine in, then you stick the needle through your shirt pocket flap and bend the needle so it hangs there. Stick and Bend, Stick and Bend. It's something we all learn in Basic Training. You hang the empty ampules on your shirt so when someone finds you, they know how much you've already administered. Basically, if you're using the atropine, you're fucked. It's going to keep you comfortable and sedated so when the gas you were exposed to kicks in, either you won't feel it or you won't care that you're feeling it.
OK, the medics in the basement were going through all the gas masks and getting rid of the expired ampules. They were sticking and bending the full ampules onto squares of cardboard to send back to the manufacturer so they could get replacements. One of these ampules when stick and bended (?), popped open and shot this medic kid dead in the eye! He walked upstairs to our little ER and they sent him up to us.
I got him in to see the optometrist (Cpt. Renee Allison, where are you?) and she laughed her ass off! He asked, "Is there an anecdote?". That made her laugh even harder, "No. This is an anecdote. You mean antidote and the answer is still no. There is no antidote." She gave him quarters for 2 days (sent him home, basically) and gave him a prescription to wear sunglasses 24/7 for a week (yes, in the Army, you need permission for such things). She laughed for days over this. Easily amused, loved her!
That poor kid, though, eye all messed up, being laughed at and probably high as a kite. Come to think of it, maybe not so "poor kid" after all! Even with his eye all messed up and being laughed at, he was probably too high to care.
Good times, Ruth!
Monday, July 23, 2007
And The Winner Is...
Here's the emptied tiny animal jar, now full of tiny names....
See? Tiny names.....
Here's the little boy who shook the names and pulled one....
Can't see it?
How 'bout now? (I know, it's blurry. The boy moves. A lot.)
It's Moxie! Also known as Sadly Blogless Lindsey!
Congrats Lindsey! Email me (Ruth AT 5elementknitr DOT com), I'll give you a couple of options to choose from.
Massage Monday:
Slight break from massage tips today to bring you a massage story...
So there I was...
Here's the story of the meanest bitch I ever worked on. The high end resort I worked at in Tucson got more then it's fair share of high-maintenance people but even high maintenance isn't generally mean.
She was an older woman (late 50's? it was hard to tell with all the plastic surgery) and wanted a deep tissue massage. She was able to take really good, deep pressure and she was a talker. (I always let the client lead; if they want to talk - no problem, want to be quiet - equally fine.)
Her: All the spas in Phoenix have been renovated, blah, blah, blah. There's some restaurant we want to go to but we can never get a reservation, blah, blah, blah.
Me: Oh, do you live in Phx?
Her: No. We have a house in Phx. We live in L.A. [CA]
Me: Oh, really? I grew up in Fresno.
Her: I don't know Fresno.
{OK, here's where I was going to say "It's up north." I got "It's" out before she cut me off to finish her sentence, so it went a little something like this....}
Her: I don't know Fresno {"It's"} and I don't care to know, frankly.
Before I could stop myself I said, "Wow."
Her: What? {She was asking as though to say, "Did you find something?" completely oblivious to my incredulity.}
Me: Oh, nothing. I just found a big knot. {It's above your neck, yoooouuuu bitch.}
She continued on with her "conversation" but I didn't even try engaging anything other then the monosyllabic "Yes." "No." here and there. She obviously didn't want to hear anything from me! The stupidest thing is that she started the conversation! And then basically told me, "Shut up and get back to work, you hired hand."
I'm high school enough that when she was still prone (which is where she was when this went down) and I had a free hand here and there, I was using it to flip her off. Also, I told her I was going to work on her piriformis and it might be a little intense. It's a muscle that runs from your sacrum to the head of your femur, deep to your glutes. It's intense in the lightest of situations. I was pinnin' the spoiled, sense-of-entitlement broad to the table. At one point she said, "OOH!" (as in OUCH!) and I asked, "Too much?" She said a little, so I didn't change the pressure and said, "How's this." "That's fine."
Stupid girl!
Good times, Ruth!
See? Tiny names.....
Here's the little boy who shook the names and pulled one....
Can't see it?
How 'bout now? (I know, it's blurry. The boy moves. A lot.)
It's Moxie! Also known as Sadly Blogless Lindsey!
Congrats Lindsey! Email me (Ruth AT 5elementknitr DOT com), I'll give you a couple of options to choose from.
Massage Monday:
Slight break from massage tips today to bring you a massage story...
So there I was...
Here's the story of the meanest bitch I ever worked on. The high end resort I worked at in Tucson got more then it's fair share of high-maintenance people but even high maintenance isn't generally mean.
She was an older woman (late 50's? it was hard to tell with all the plastic surgery) and wanted a deep tissue massage. She was able to take really good, deep pressure and she was a talker. (I always let the client lead; if they want to talk - no problem, want to be quiet - equally fine.)
Her: All the spas in Phoenix have been renovated, blah, blah, blah. There's some restaurant we want to go to but we can never get a reservation, blah, blah, blah.
Me: Oh, do you live in Phx?
Her: No. We have a house in Phx. We live in L.A. [CA]
Me: Oh, really? I grew up in Fresno.
Her: I don't know Fresno.
{OK, here's where I was going to say "It's up north." I got "It's" out before she cut me off to finish her sentence, so it went a little something like this....}
Her: I don't know Fresno {"It's"} and I don't care to know, frankly.
Before I could stop myself I said, "Wow."
Her: What? {She was asking as though to say, "Did you find something?" completely oblivious to my incredulity.}
Me: Oh, nothing. I just found a big knot. {It's above your neck, yoooouuuu bitch.}
She continued on with her "conversation" but I didn't even try engaging anything other then the monosyllabic "Yes." "No." here and there. She obviously didn't want to hear anything from me! The stupidest thing is that she started the conversation! And then basically told me, "Shut up and get back to work, you hired hand."
I'm high school enough that when she was still prone (which is where she was when this went down) and I had a free hand here and there, I was using it to flip her off. Also, I told her I was going to work on her piriformis and it might be a little intense. It's a muscle that runs from your sacrum to the head of your femur, deep to your glutes. It's intense in the lightest of situations. I was pinnin' the spoiled, sense-of-entitlement broad to the table. At one point she said, "OOH!" (as in OUCH!) and I asked, "Too much?" She said a little, so I didn't change the pressure and said, "How's this." "That's fine."
Stupid girl!
Good times, Ruth!
Friday, June 22, 2007
Waxing Nostalgic
Answers to yesterday's questions.
First off, I don't actually have a Berroco Suede addiction. I have an ebay yarn store. Don't get too excited, I don't' make any money off it. I usually sell just enough every month to pay for the store. (My whole freakin' life is a Catch-22.) I never take yarn out of it for myself, but this time, what the hell!
Yarnhog asked how the waxing went for Rachel. I called her last night to see (as I'd planned on doing) and she's very happy with the results. And Chicken Knits (who, by the way, is having a destashing sale. So if someone wants to get me some Red Cherry Hill yarn. Just sayin'.) said she'd used Nads once and got black and blue marks for her troubles. Rachel had some of those, too. Scary!
Knitnzu (who has a great link to some sexy, feminine knits) said she'd never waxed. It's not as bad as it sounds. It hurts pretty bad the first time, because you really don't know what to expect. After the first time, it's not so bad. It's totally worth it! Not having to shave or anything for weeks on end is worth the trouble. The only thing I'll NEVER wax again is my underarms! That hurt worse then even the bikini line. And your underarm hair grows so unevenly that after you go through that pain, in a few days, you've got to shave again anyway. It hurts worse then a full Brazilian (that's were they take away all the pubic hair.) Also, called a Kojak. I tried that one once. Yeah. That hurt. And humiliating?? Ohmigod. After they do the front they make you get on your hands and knees so they can do the back. The anus. TMI. Sorry. Some friends and I were talking about it once and my friend said, that of course they had to do the back. She said you couldn't do the drapes and leave the valance!
Yarnhog also said she'd used an Epilady once in the 80's. Epilady is a little evil machine with rotating, I don't know, smooth, vertical disks (?) on top. These disks grab and rip out the hairs. Sort of like waxing only instead of doing whole strips of hair at a time, you're doing little 1" patches as you move it around. It. takes. FOREVER. Whereas, waxing is over relatively quickly. I have a little story about Epilady.
So there I was....
A friend of mine worked the Lancome counter at Macy's when we were in high school. It was pretty cool because she was always hookin' me up with the samples and all the "gift with purchase" things. (I used to wear makeup in the 80's. Wore enough of it that I never really felt the need to wear it again.) Anyway, the store needed a demonstrator for this new product called Epilady. She got me the job. You think being a demonstrator for perfume is bad?? (You'll notice the first half of the job is "demon", right?)
Anyway, it was my 3rd day on the job and it was a Friday evening. I'm standing there in my Sandra Garrett Modulars, holding the dreaded machine and offering to demonstrate on the arms of passersby. This big, drunk, incredibly hairy, biker guy and his buddies walk up to me and start joking about it. They'd seen the ads on TV and were daring each other to try it. I was just about to explain something when the hairy man grabbed the Epilady out of my hand and put it on his arm. His very. VERY. Hairy. Arm.
The thing I was about to explain is that with hair that thick, you're supposed to trim it first to a manageable length otherwise it'll just get tangled and stuck to your arm. Which it did. That huge, macho guy started screaming like a girl and crying like a baby. I reached over and turned the thing off and then I had to locate some small scissors to cut it out of the hair on his arm. He was bleeding (only a little) and making a scene (only a lot). His friends (and I) were laughing their asses off. He pretty much ruined the Epilady and was talking about suing. I explained that to sue, he'd have to call the police to file a report and they'd have to do a breathalyzer test on him. He decided he was fine.
I don't know why I lied to him like that. It's not like I cared about protecting Macy's interests. Or mine, so much. It's probably more the fact that, growing up in California, I was irritated by all the superfluous litigation. Also, I quit the job that night.
By the way, it took me about 15 minutes to find a link with pictures about those Sandra Garrett clothes. (5 minutes of that was just trying to rememeber what they were called!) It's only a link to an ebay auction. So, in a few days, the pictures will probably be gone. Apparently, those clothes are among the many things that we shall not speak of concerning the 1980's.
Remembering the ugly, fondly, Ruth!
First off, I don't actually have a Berroco Suede addiction. I have an ebay yarn store. Don't get too excited, I don't' make any money off it. I usually sell just enough every month to pay for the store. (My whole freakin' life is a Catch-22.) I never take yarn out of it for myself, but this time, what the hell!
Yarnhog asked how the waxing went for Rachel. I called her last night to see (as I'd planned on doing) and she's very happy with the results. And Chicken Knits (who, by the way, is having a destashing sale. So if someone wants to get me some Red Cherry Hill yarn. Just sayin'.) said she'd used Nads once and got black and blue marks for her troubles. Rachel had some of those, too. Scary!
Knitnzu (who has a great link to some sexy, feminine knits) said she'd never waxed. It's not as bad as it sounds. It hurts pretty bad the first time, because you really don't know what to expect. After the first time, it's not so bad. It's totally worth it! Not having to shave or anything for weeks on end is worth the trouble. The only thing I'll NEVER wax again is my underarms! That hurt worse then even the bikini line. And your underarm hair grows so unevenly that after you go through that pain, in a few days, you've got to shave again anyway. It hurts worse then a full Brazilian (that's were they take away all the pubic hair.) Also, called a Kojak. I tried that one once. Yeah. That hurt. And humiliating?? Ohmigod. After they do the front they make you get on your hands and knees so they can do the back. The anus. TMI. Sorry. Some friends and I were talking about it once and my friend said, that of course they had to do the back. She said you couldn't do the drapes and leave the valance!
Yarnhog also said she'd used an Epilady once in the 80's. Epilady is a little evil machine with rotating, I don't know, smooth, vertical disks (?) on top. These disks grab and rip out the hairs. Sort of like waxing only instead of doing whole strips of hair at a time, you're doing little 1" patches as you move it around. It. takes. FOREVER. Whereas, waxing is over relatively quickly. I have a little story about Epilady.
So there I was....
A friend of mine worked the Lancome counter at Macy's when we were in high school. It was pretty cool because she was always hookin' me up with the samples and all the "gift with purchase" things. (I used to wear makeup in the 80's. Wore enough of it that I never really felt the need to wear it again.) Anyway, the store needed a demonstrator for this new product called Epilady. She got me the job. You think being a demonstrator for perfume is bad?? (You'll notice the first half of the job is "demon", right?)
Anyway, it was my 3rd day on the job and it was a Friday evening. I'm standing there in my Sandra Garrett Modulars, holding the dreaded machine and offering to demonstrate on the arms of passersby. This big, drunk, incredibly hairy, biker guy and his buddies walk up to me and start joking about it. They'd seen the ads on TV and were daring each other to try it. I was just about to explain something when the hairy man grabbed the Epilady out of my hand and put it on his arm. His very. VERY. Hairy. Arm.
The thing I was about to explain is that with hair that thick, you're supposed to trim it first to a manageable length otherwise it'll just get tangled and stuck to your arm. Which it did. That huge, macho guy started screaming like a girl and crying like a baby. I reached over and turned the thing off and then I had to locate some small scissors to cut it out of the hair on his arm. He was bleeding (only a little) and making a scene (only a lot). His friends (and I) were laughing their asses off. He pretty much ruined the Epilady and was talking about suing. I explained that to sue, he'd have to call the police to file a report and they'd have to do a breathalyzer test on him. He decided he was fine.
I don't know why I lied to him like that. It's not like I cared about protecting Macy's interests. Or mine, so much. It's probably more the fact that, growing up in California, I was irritated by all the superfluous litigation. Also, I quit the job that night.
By the way, it took me about 15 minutes to find a link with pictures about those Sandra Garrett clothes. (5 minutes of that was just trying to rememeber what they were called!) It's only a link to an ebay auction. So, in a few days, the pictures will probably be gone. Apparently, those clothes are among the many things that we shall not speak of concerning the 1980's.
Remembering the ugly, fondly, Ruth!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tense much?
I feel as though I've been swatching my life away. I was swatching some Ornaghi-Filati Gong to make the Mason-Dixon After Dark Nightie and the gauge is supposed to be 20sts on US 6 needles. I was getting 24. Had to work my way up to an 8! Then I looked at the ball band and realized I started out getting the actual gauge called for on the label. I guess M-D wants a looser fabric. No sweat.
I was also swatching for the Ogee Tunic from Knitting Nature. Using Garnstudio Drops Alpaca. Supposed to be getting 23 sts on US 4 needles. I was getting 28 sts! Had to work all the way up to US 7's! (By the way, this is a fabulous yarn! Sooooo soft and lovely.)
I always do this with slippery yarns. I death-grip it in fear of dropping a stitch. Tomorrow I CO. (So much for my first summer goal - 5 WIP's indeed.)
We found this in our front yard this weekend....
A sweet, loooong garter snake buddy. (Had to be at least a 3 footer.) Reminded me of a story (which I dedicate to Knitiot Savant).
So there I was.....
(If I ever start a story this way, get a snack and have a seat. Or move on. Your choice.)
When Dave and I first moved in together, I was a package deal. I had a huge tabby cat (Oscar) and 3 dogs (Maggie, the embarrassingly-harmless-Rottweiler; Toto,the wire-haired-mutt-terrier-that-looked-like-you-guessed-it; and Squirrel, a little strawberry-blonde-with-amber-eyes-mutt). We lived in a 2 bedroom townhouse. The development it was in was across the street from a huge open field where people go and take their kids and dogs to run and play off-leash.
We lived there 4/99 - 1/03. When I was about 5 months pregnant with our first kid, I talked some friends from my Shiatsu massage class into going to a concert of The Molly's. Dave didn't care for them and had to be up at 4a the next day to go to work so he opted to stay home. When I got home at about 11p that night, I came in the house and saw the backyard light on, and Dave out there with a shovel and a flashlight. The dogs were going NUTS. I opened the back sliding glass door and said, "What are you doing? Go to bed, we'll pick up the poop tomorrow." He yelled at me to, "CLOSE THE DOOR, THERE'S A SNAKE OUT HERE!!!"
It didn't quite register at first but then I heard the rattle. No mistakin' that sound! I told him to come inside and bring the dogs. He didn't listen for a few minutes and he was actually trying to kill it with the shovel. Come on. Seriously? Did he really think he was faster then a snake? He did. He was wrong. He didn't get hurt and I finally convinced him to come in and let the dogs in the house (they were outdoor dogs).
Dave is terrified of snakes. (He used to run 18 of 36 holes at a high end golf course in Tucson and had seen his fair share of them.) I spent the next 20 minutes calling pest control places to get someone to come out and remove the thing. The weird part is that our area of town was considered city. If we were county, the fire department would come and get it. Apparently if you're in the city... you're on your own. All the places we called were closed. We finally got one guy on the phone and he wouldn't come out but he suggested we get a hose and spray the little beasty til it left our yard. Great, so it goes into the neighbor's yard? They're like, 80.
Finally, I had a brilliant idea. I called the hotel where I worked (at the spa) and had them transfer me to maintenance. I knew for a fact that they've had to collect a snake or two and had the equipment to do it safely. (One time they had to remove a 6 foot bullsnake from the second floor hallway!) I talked to three of them before I got a young kid who would do the job. I told him I'd come and get him and take him back. It normally takes about 25 minutes to get to the hotel from our house. I made it in 10. (Midnight, no traffic, excessive speeding, you know...)
The kid brought the snake-catching equipment (a long metal pole with a grabber on the end and a cage) and the three of us were in the backyard trying to catch this desert rattler. Finally, the kid had me go on one side of our tree and shine a light in it's eyes to distract it and he went on the other side of the tree and grabbed it with the pole thingy. (They use metal because it has no heat and snakes can't sense it. Seems good in theory, but in the desert, metal things are hotter then anything else!)
He pulled it out of the weeds and GODDAMM!!! It was close to four feet long!! (I always regret that none of us thought to take a picture of it.) We debated what to do with it. We couldn't take it across to the open field (because of the aforementioned family outings that go on there) and we knew that if you take a snake out of it's normal radius (5 miles?) it'll die anyway.
We ended up chopping it's (not-so) little head off with the shovel. It was so freaky. It actually did that still opening and closing thing with it's mouth that you see in the movies. The kid took the whole thing with it to be taxidermy-ed. I felt really bad for it, it wasn't pissed off or attacking or anything. It was just scared and defending itself. But, what're ya gonna do?
OK, just had a weird memory. A boy that had, at one time or another, dated all 3 of my stepsisters (and eventually married Janet) used to keep snakes at his house. He kept them in separate aquariums and hand-fed them all. Including the rattler. He had his own anit-venom kit. Crazy!
For those of you that've made it this far... I present my first sock heel.
Sweet, snakeless, dreams, Ruth!
I was also swatching for the Ogee Tunic from Knitting Nature. Using Garnstudio Drops Alpaca. Supposed to be getting 23 sts on US 4 needles. I was getting 28 sts! Had to work all the way up to US 7's! (By the way, this is a fabulous yarn! Sooooo soft and lovely.)
I always do this with slippery yarns. I death-grip it in fear of dropping a stitch. Tomorrow I CO. (So much for my first summer goal - 5 WIP's indeed.)
We found this in our front yard this weekend....
A sweet, loooong garter snake buddy. (Had to be at least a 3 footer.) Reminded me of a story (which I dedicate to Knitiot Savant).
So there I was.....
(If I ever start a story this way, get a snack and have a seat. Or move on. Your choice.)
When Dave and I first moved in together, I was a package deal. I had a huge tabby cat (Oscar) and 3 dogs (Maggie, the embarrassingly-harmless-Rottweiler; Toto,the wire-haired-mutt-terrier-that-looked-like-you-guessed-it; and Squirrel, a little strawberry-blonde-with-amber-eyes-mutt). We lived in a 2 bedroom townhouse. The development it was in was across the street from a huge open field where people go and take their kids and dogs to run and play off-leash.
We lived there 4/99 - 1/03. When I was about 5 months pregnant with our first kid, I talked some friends from my Shiatsu massage class into going to a concert of The Molly's. Dave didn't care for them and had to be up at 4a the next day to go to work so he opted to stay home. When I got home at about 11p that night, I came in the house and saw the backyard light on, and Dave out there with a shovel and a flashlight. The dogs were going NUTS. I opened the back sliding glass door and said, "What are you doing? Go to bed, we'll pick up the poop tomorrow." He yelled at me to, "CLOSE THE DOOR, THERE'S A SNAKE OUT HERE!!!"
It didn't quite register at first but then I heard the rattle. No mistakin' that sound! I told him to come inside and bring the dogs. He didn't listen for a few minutes and he was actually trying to kill it with the shovel. Come on. Seriously? Did he really think he was faster then a snake? He did. He was wrong. He didn't get hurt and I finally convinced him to come in and let the dogs in the house (they were outdoor dogs).
Dave is terrified of snakes. (He used to run 18 of 36 holes at a high end golf course in Tucson and had seen his fair share of them.) I spent the next 20 minutes calling pest control places to get someone to come out and remove the thing. The weird part is that our area of town was considered city. If we were county, the fire department would come and get it. Apparently if you're in the city... you're on your own. All the places we called were closed. We finally got one guy on the phone and he wouldn't come out but he suggested we get a hose and spray the little beasty til it left our yard. Great, so it goes into the neighbor's yard? They're like, 80.
Finally, I had a brilliant idea. I called the hotel where I worked (at the spa) and had them transfer me to maintenance. I knew for a fact that they've had to collect a snake or two and had the equipment to do it safely. (One time they had to remove a 6 foot bullsnake from the second floor hallway!) I talked to three of them before I got a young kid who would do the job. I told him I'd come and get him and take him back. It normally takes about 25 minutes to get to the hotel from our house. I made it in 10. (Midnight, no traffic, excessive speeding, you know...)
The kid brought the snake-catching equipment (a long metal pole with a grabber on the end and a cage) and the three of us were in the backyard trying to catch this desert rattler. Finally, the kid had me go on one side of our tree and shine a light in it's eyes to distract it and he went on the other side of the tree and grabbed it with the pole thingy. (They use metal because it has no heat and snakes can't sense it. Seems good in theory, but in the desert, metal things are hotter then anything else!)
He pulled it out of the weeds and GODDAMM!!! It was close to four feet long!! (I always regret that none of us thought to take a picture of it.) We debated what to do with it. We couldn't take it across to the open field (because of the aforementioned family outings that go on there) and we knew that if you take a snake out of it's normal radius (5 miles?) it'll die anyway.
We ended up chopping it's (not-so) little head off with the shovel. It was so freaky. It actually did that still opening and closing thing with it's mouth that you see in the movies. The kid took the whole thing with it to be taxidermy-ed. I felt really bad for it, it wasn't pissed off or attacking or anything. It was just scared and defending itself. But, what're ya gonna do?
OK, just had a weird memory. A boy that had, at one time or another, dated all 3 of my stepsisters (and eventually married Janet) used to keep snakes at his house. He kept them in separate aquariums and hand-fed them all. Including the rattler. He had his own anit-venom kit. Crazy!
For those of you that've made it this far... I present my first sock heel.
Sweet, snakeless, dreams, Ruth!
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