You Can't Fix this Level of Stupid

 

We are so doomed!!!!

 

 

 

 In all the annals of stupid that I have been exposed it was this week that I saw something so strange that it defied all my expectations. I stumbled upon the meme to your left accidentally as I was wasting time at home watching the grass and weeds in my yard grow. See the fun part is seeing my neighbors drive by and give me dirty looks for not having a seamless carpet of deep green in my front yard.

After discovering this meme, I was enthralled at the interlocking levels of stunning stupidity and brazen incomprehension that one person can possibly endure and still be able to remember to breathe. I say that because Jesse here is legitimately saying that he could do the following:

1. That he could force his way into an international airport with just a good old American AR-15 while carrying his sick son.

2. That they could then force their way onto a fully fueled plane with a pilot.

3. That this pilot would then fly across the Atlantic Ocean and land in Italy.

4. Then Jesse would fight his way off the plane, with his son and then to a hospital.

Those were just the most basic steps since anyone who has read something more that the infantile propagandize drivel of your average conspiracy-plagued Fox News host knows you can't readily hijack a plane like you might a car driving down a deserted street. Now I'm sure in Jesse's armchair commando mind he's probably recruited a number of like-minded individuals all armed themselves to carry off his plan. Hell with a big enough circle lunatic friends he may even have a pilot friend or two.

Still though, Jesse's statement was so bleeding stupid I have heard five-year old kids who still believe in Santa say things more rational. After my initial discover I looked Jesse up on Twitter. It's almost like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram made the nasty and the child they created was exponentially more crazy than them both.

Enough of the stupid, lets now explore the incomprehension. Jesse here is proposing that he would marshal all his God-given American manhood and using his AR-15 force his way to Italy so his child could be saved by socialized medicine. Yes, good folks whether Jesse know it or not Italy, along with all other Western nations, has some form of evil, communistic, socialized medicine. While the United States is still mired to privatized medical system where insurance companies decided whether or not your family will go bankrupt due to a sick family member. Remember Sarah Palin and the evil of rationed health care she talked about during her bizarre time as the Republican vice president nominee?

Rationed health care has existed for as long as insurance companies and many times they have allowed darling grandmothers to die because of some cost/benefit analysis.

So this begs the question, instead of attempting an improbable hijacking wouldn't it be better to just work together and bring some form of socialized medicine here to this country? 

 Unrelated to Jesse, here's some more stupid. This good American is praying to Donald Trump to save him from the police. This country is doomed, get out if you can!

 

This Reality Sucks

Just for shits and giggles, I'll ask a stupid and mostly rhetorical question but answer it anyway. How does any sane person make sense of the times we find ourselves living? Please, I'd love to know why because everything seems to have gone to shit pretty much after they shot that gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo back in May of 2016.

Now I'm usually good for making a tongue-in-cheek comment about a certain time-traveling, DeLorean-driving teenager and his crazy scientist buddy screwing with the timeline for why things have gone loony. My other go-to explanation is the computer simulation hypothesis which says our reality is nothing but a extra complicated video game and that our creator/gamer/god has given the controller to his baby brother while he runs to the kitchen for snacks and sodas.

There's no need to rehash the cluster fuck that's been the latter half of the 2010's. And if anyone reading this thinks everything is peachy-keen do the world a favor and do not reproduce. That being said there is a couple of things I have to mention because we're talking a Rod Serling level of Twilight Light Zone weirdness.

Everyone remember the Alaskan Trailer Trash Queen, Sarah Palin? The woman that John McCain nominated as his vice president back in 2008 despite her not having enough brain power to light the metaphorical ten-watt refrigerator bulb. Remember her bitchy shrill comment about how Obama was going to have “Death Panels” that would send grandma and kids with Down's Syndrome to the Big Hereafter if he got elected?

I never understood who originated her Death Panel talking points but Fox News and all the other right-wing propaganda outlets sure as hell ran with the story sending damn near all the old timers and their right-wing kinfolk into spasms of mind numbing fear. Otherwise good people ended up buying assault weapons believing that jack-booted government thugs would break down their front doors to take dear old grandma and grandpa to a death camp because they was using too much Medicare.

For years Right-wingers lost their freaking marbles over Palin's Death Panels but now the situation has made a surreal 180 with Right-wingers taking a bizarre new stance. Now, according to numerous high-level Republican politicians and a lot of capitalist-loving Deplorables, both grandma and grandpa should be happy to die during the COVID pandemic to “save the economy” and assure Trump get reelected in 2020.

Back in normal times any fucking fiction writer would have been laughed out of town had he or she purposed such and insane idea. Seriously folks, this is a level of batshit crazy that scares me, because if any group is willing to sacrifice living human beings for the short-term benefit or a political gain, no one is safe.

The other thing that baffles me is the cosmic-level hypocrisy with the Republicans drooling over Ruth Bader Ginsburg possibly passing away leaving another Supreme Court seat open they can steal. Remember back in the closing months of the Obama Administration when Justice Scalia passed away? The Grand Turtle from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, lost his Blue Grass shit over some vague bullshit called the Biden Rule which called for First Bush to wait until after the 1992 election before appointing a replacement to the Supreme Court.

Okay, I understand the politics involved especially when it comes to then Senator Biden and his now inconvenient maneuvering. But since McConnell made such a huge stink over the Biden Rule with Obama, to openly salivate over Ginsburg's seat before the woman is even cold is some outrageously cold malevolent shit. Truthfully, I also see tinges of Orwellian doublespeak in McConnell's sudden reversal of his stance on the holy Biden Rule.

Finally, we're twenty years into the twenty-first century and redneck assholes can still shoot an unarmed black man and get away with it most times. I'm referring to the recent Ahmaud Arbery shooting down in Brunswick, Georgia where two fine examples of Southern Heritage inbreeding decided to play cop/judge/executioner. This blatant example of fascist-level, racism-inspired murder should shock me but it doesn't, because in all honesty that shit is still alive and is covered over with only with millimeter thin deep civility.

Certain folks like to talk about all the religious and ethnic craziness that engulfs all those “shit hole” places around the world like we're special. But if you listen that hate and rage exists here in the United States and is never far from erupting, especially when you have such a cheerleader for it living in the White House.

I'm not comfortable describing how worried I am about the country and even the safety of certain members of my family. The situation around the country has been deteriorating for years but with the Orange Buffoon strutting around and undermining every pillar of national stability, I don't see a limit to how bad things could fall apart. America does not possess any exemption to the tides of history and to go against Martin Luther King, the moral arc of justice is not guaranteed to bend upward.

Of course, the answers will come with time but good ones will require all good people to act. 

All you fuckers who didn't vote or went third party back in 2016 better get a clue, you whiny bitches.

In The Land Of The Gun

You don’t live around, and in all honesty once belong to the extreme end of the gun culture without having some basic understanding about how things have gotten this bad. There was time when the general public had enough commonsense to understand pulling any sort of weapon out as a threat was a declaration that society had essentially broken down at that moment. 

Without delving into all the facets of Southern society and their various strengths and faults the overall view was that civility was preferable to some sort of recreation of the Old West. Now there were individuals who were exceptions to this viewpoint, but a seemingly casual visit by a reputable law enforcement figure was usually enough to quash any nasty proto-anarchical tendencies forming. However, decent and mostly sane behavior could usually be traced back to how a person was brought up.  

For various reasons my grandparents raised me from the age of eleven until I reached that nebulous stage called young adulthood. During that time I was exposed to, but did not have any access to weapons greater than a BB gun without my grandfather right beside me. One of the few times my grandfather actually felt the need to ever spank me was the day I showed off his antique double barreled shotgun to a few curious buddies. Concerning the BB gun, I once made the mistake of bragging to him about a bird I shot for a thrill, the calm and cool reasoning my grandfather shared with me about how that was monstrous behavior was in its way far worse than the spanking. Needless to say, I never killed another bird again. Squirrels were a different matter; they could be cleaned and cooked and my grandfather’s neighbor loved to serve them up with rice and butter beans.    

Somewhere in the midst of the Ronny Reagan-inspired rebirth of American patriotism the usual reserved approach to even the appearance of weapons in public went the way of the dodo bird. It is hard to stay reasonable in the face of a massive theatrical onslaught where semi-coherent, quasi-actors battle the latest surge in atheistic communism with humorous one-liners and the most advanced and massive assault weapons their steroid soaked arms can hold.

While there is a question which actually came first, shrill politicians panicking over the Soviets conquering the Western world or the Hollywood action hero going out to battle this political Sauron and his legions of AK-47 carrying orcs. Our elected leaders, always willing to sink to the lowest common denominator of base behavior far faster than any daytime talk show host, continued to stoke the communist fears and promote the idea that the way to defeat the red menace was through armed conflict.

You simple cannot carry on like this without the basic underpinnings of society starting to come apart. Never mind that the Soviet Union collapsed under its own ponderous weight, once fear has been instituted as a national characteristic and the belief that all problems can be solved with the use of a weapon with sufficient caliber all bets are off. People start believing that weapons specifically designed not to outright kill, but shred the bodies of soldiers should be owned by all. That there is a right to the unrestricted purchase of all kinds of ammunition even though you cannot buy one package of extra-strength sinus medicine in a drug store without a record being kept. Or that a person should be immune from prosecution if he kills an innocent bystander because he was “standing his ground.”

From "The State" newspaper:

Is shooting a bystander in South Carolina someone else's fault?

COLUMBIA, SC — Shannon Scott argues he should not be prosecuted for shooting and killing an unarmed Keenan High School basketball player.

In his Stand Your Ground argument in a Richland County courtroom this week, Scott and his attorney, Todd Rutherford, said Scott fired his weapon from his front yard to protect his daughter, who was being chased by people trying to hurt her.

It’s terrible, but Darrell Niles, a 17-year-old innocent bystander, just got in the way, they said.

“He simply ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rutherford said.

Scott, 36, says he should be granted immunity from going to trial on murder charges. But others told the judge that if Scott isn’t prosecuted, South Carolina will move one step closer to becoming a free-fire zone where people shoot and kill innocent bystanders with impunity.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/08/16/2924473/is-shooting-a-bystander-in-south.html#storylink=cpy

I don't find this stuff amusing anymore.....

Now updated for your pleasure.

You know I'm daily feeling less and less welcome in my own country which curiously enough is acting like a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard. Maybe it’s all the mutts, my short attention span, long nights, and lack of a role model because he ducked out some alley with some roly-poly bat face girl. All along there were hints and allegations, incidents and accidents far away from my well-lit door. Hell, I know I'm soft in the middle but I want my photo opportunity and shot at redemption. Dear God, what if I die here?

But I feel like I am walking down a strange street in the Third World. Its my first time around and I don’t speak the language, hold no currency and I am surrounded by the sounds of cattle in the market place and I see angels in the architecture spinning in infinity.

I guess I need a bodyguard, I could call him Betty and I would be his long lost pal Al.

Tea Party-Backed Candidate Christine O'Donnell's War on Masturbation
"The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust," she said. "The reason that you don't tell [people] that masturbation is the answer to AIDS and all these other problems that come with sex outside of marriage is because, again, it is not addressing the issue. You're just gonna create somebody who is, I was gonna say, toying with his sexuality. Pardon the pun."

Grand Old Party Delusions

Legends are material to be molded, and not facts to be recorded.
Hervey Allen

During the recent weekend trip down to Charleston, South Carolina while my wife, daughter, and I were enjoying the culture and history of the Holy City I just happened to catch a glimpse of a strange sight. In the window of some store along Meeting Street was a Twilight Zone-like painting of several Republican presidents sitting around a table playing poker. I found myself amused at the sight of it because while I mean no insult my first thought at seeing the picture was its likeness to the series of schlock paintings collectively entitled "Dogs Playing Poker" by the early 20th century artist C.M. Coolidge. The second thought, which I found even funnier, was that with this being South Carolina this painting is high art if not an actual religious icon.

The eight men in the picture are all in good health and in obvious good humor enjoying each other's company, in the background appears to be some sort of a mural of a city with a podium above it. While the appearance of First and Second Bush complicates matters given that everyone else has long since passed away they appear to be in some form of Republican afterlife and are having a party later with a high-powered speaker attending. To the question of their actual supernatural location and the possible high-powered speaker I will leave that to the reader, especially with Dick Cheney not hovering somewhere nearby snacking on the bones of some tortured soul.

As for these men even with my liberal leanings, I consider Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt great presidents. Only the deluded and bizarre would consider anything other but such small and narrow minds do exist. Ike ranks right up there with them, he truly was a great warrior and leader of men and his years as president held their own unique and difficult challenges. They were not perfect men even in their own ages and today all three would be castigated in some manner for things accepted as normal in their times. However, they were without a doubt honorable men and the country was damn lucky to have them.

I will have to include President Ford in the ranks of a good president for his efforts in restoring the confidence of the nation and building bridges of trust after the nightmare of Watergate. Although his pardon of Richard Nixon, while saving the country from having to go through another nightmare none the less allowed his immediate predecessor to escape the full measure of justice. I agree with those that say allowing Nixon to essentially get away without fully being exposed set the stage for other presidential misadventures. As far as I am concerned, even having Nixon in the painting insinuates that the person who created it is separated from reality to a great degree.

As for Reagan and First Bush everyone has their own opinion of them and even mine is complicated. In an attempt to avoid digressing into the predictable political degradations I will only say that they were just normal men, full of faults and weaknesses that we all share but many of their actions hurt the country with only its innate strengths allowing it to move on. However, the damages they inflicted have festered and edged the country ever closer to disaster.

I save special condemnation for Second Bush whose incurious leadership and illegal behavior has killed untold thousands overseas and who by himself took the country from a budget surplus to doubling the national debt by the time he left office. He left such a mess that President Obama may end up saddled with the greatest part of the blame for the chaos he created.

My biggest issue with that bizarre painting is how the arrangement of presidents suggests a certain pecking order with a nod to current Republican ideology. Instead of it centered on Lincoln and Teddy who are undeniably the greatest men in the bunch, Reagan and Second Bush appear dominant, huddled close together while Ike is set apart and behind them. In fact, all we see of Lincoln is his back with him appearing to be telling a joke. Teddy, relegated to second tier status, is position uncomfortably close to Nixon for me. First Bush is so close to the edge that it seems he could almost fall off, of course he was only a one-term president who raised taxes. Its a wonder he even made the cut at all when you think about the cardinal sin he committed. For me President Ford is in the best position, Lincoln is still a great hero in my eyes and if such a place as heaven actually exists and I am lucky enough to get there, finding Abe and talking with him would be high on my list of things to do.

I have no doubt that this painting is a piece of pure propaganda, meant to reinforce a view of self-centered righteousness and superiority. That American greatness can only come from one narrow political viewpoint instead of a mix of views and ideas. If this painter wanted this picture to represent a true American spirit presidents from other parties would be sitting at the table enjoying the humor of Lincoln. I am sure that somewhere some Democratic painter has his own sanctimonious version with Jefferson, Jackson, Truman, Kennedy, and Clinton gathered around Franklin having their own good time. However, for me the problems that the country faces right now are too damn great to wallow in petty self-justication that only polarizes the nation further.

It is a disturbing tendency in this country to view any one that opposes you as the enemy and to paint them as evil. Which is very sad since I am certain that there is at least one man in that painting who would be the first to stand up and proclaim how such behavior is totally un-American.

An insult to monkeys

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption

There is a quote by Plato that I recently saw that says anyone who thinks he is too smart to engage in politics will be punished by being govern by those who are dumber. How can this ever humble country boy hope to have a rational argument with one of the most brilliant minds in human history. Except that here in South Carolina it appears that battle was lost long ago and the best hope, at least from my perspective, would be to hunker down and take cover from the shit that our wise and intelligent leaders are stirring up exponentially.

Waking up this afternoon I began cruising the internet to get some idea of what I events I might have missed the last several hours. Much to my expected regret I did not win millions in the lotto, an alien starship did not arrive in Earth orbit, and there is still nothing on the market to magically return hair to my balding head. However, on a much more expected note South Carolina politicians are once again doing their best to earn a segment on The Daily Show or provide fodder for the the last night comedians.

Bauer wants another constitutional convention

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, one of four Republicans running for governor, said he's spearheading a national effort to have a second constitutional convention to fight health care reform.

Bauer was a guest of Fox News' "On the Record" with Greta Van Sustren Monday when he said he's been talking to lieutenant governors and state legislatures across the nation about the idea of holding a constitutional convention.

Bauer said lawsuits will not work to block federal health care. S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, who is also running for governor, is one of 13 states attorneys general seeking to block health care reform in federal court.

"I'm told that they will not work and that this is our only possibility of stopping this," Bauer said.

The lieutenant governor said 34 states -- or two-thirds -- would have to agree to holding a constitutional convention.

He said he's sure he can get to 34 states because Bauer said health care reform is unpopular.

"This is a battle -- I can't think of a battle more important than stopping what's happening in Washington right now," Bauer said.

For those not familiar with South Carolina politics Bauer is thought of so poorly even in Republican circles that when there was talk of Governor Sandford as a possible Republican VP pick in the last election a certain amount of panic ensued when it was realized he could be running the state. The idea of someone like him taking part in any Constitutional convention should scare the living shit out of people.

Never fear though, the Appalachian Trailer walker himself is still courageously fighting all forms of evil taxes, even on cigarettes.
Sanford still wants tax cut with cigarette tax hike

Gov. Mark Sanford said today that a recently-enacted federal health insurance law will not change his position on raising the state cigarette tax.
Sanford has opposed any cigarette tax increase that did not include an equivalent tax cut. The Senate is likely to begin debating raising the tax by 50 cents per pack this week.
At seven cents per pack, South Carolina's cigarette tax is the lowest in the nation.
The federal health care law is projected to cost the state $914 million by 2020, but Sanford said he would not support setting aside additional cigarette tax revenue to fund the mandated expanded coverage for low-income residents.
"We're still at the same spot we were," Sanford said. His office had previously said the governor would reevaluate his position due to the health care law.
Sanford's veto has been a key roadblock for lawmakers supporting a cigarette tax increase. A majority of lawmakers support raising the tax, but the House failed to gather the two-thirds support to overturn a 2008 veto.

All thing considered Twain is still overestimating humans on this matter. Our reasoning power is about equal to a common slime.

Minor covert adventures in uniform

Being all that I could be and getting away with it.

A few months ago while making my way to the hospital cafeteria I bumped into the wife of the first sergeant from the National Guard unit I retired from in 2005. The best description of this lady I can offer is that she is a South Carolina version of the former Texas governor, the late Ann Richards. Steel hard bright blue eyes, a strong but motherly voice that could scare any officer under a full bird colonel, snow white hair that gives her air of grace and strength, and a commanding presence that kept many a wife of the lower NCO's and enlisted in line when situations concerning the unit and their husbands had many of them worried. She ran the unit family support group for years before her husband had became first sergeant and it would be a fair assessment to say that he inherited some of his authority from her, although I would never say that to him. We exchanged greetings and small talk with her chastising me some for retiring when I did hinting that even now it may not be too late for me to reenlist. With the help of her good grace I side stepped the reenlistment issue and soon found out that her husband was in the hospital for some surgery. I promised her that I would be up for a visit once he was ready for visitors and we both then went our separate ways. Just two days later I was called to the phone at work and found the first sergeant's wife on the other end with her relaying a message in her famous authority voice that the now retired sergeant major wanted to see me in his room two minutes ago. I was fairly sure the "order" was done in jest but some part of me still felt the urge to hustle up quickly and find out what I had done wrong, although I had some idea. But, I'll need to drop back and punt to explain.

From the time I first entered the service in 1984 till 1997 I had been in air defense specifically and combat arms in general. The mind set for many in combat arms is far more fast paced than in the support units that normally stay in the rear areas. Not that the rear area jobs are any easier, some are far worse, its just they do things differently than the grunts, gun bunnies, tankers, and the ever lowly air defense types. After I left the active army in 1990 I hooked up with a Stinger missile battalion in the upstate and was fairly happy running around in the woods close to Clemson University doing air defense and general soldier training with the other members of my unit. Now Dragonwife, with no real idea of the military life, took my tales of soldier fun and frolic as nothing but a bunch of little boys playing in the woods and started suggesting that I transfer down to a local unit so I wouldn't be so far away from home. From the time we were married in 1994 till 1997 I resisted, telling her I enjoyed what I was doing and since I had family in the area I could stay with I was spending no real money, except for gas, and I would not transfer. While I didn't change my attitude about the National Guard the National Guard changed its attitude about its members and how it related to their civilian jobs. Where once the Guard worked with its members when conflict arose with their civilian jobs and weekend drills after 1995 the Guard started being less and less flexible wanting the civilian job to come second to the National Guard. While I'm sure there are many in the Guard now that would debate this point none the less I remember 1995 being a year that many began leaving when they felt they could not risk their civilian jobs for a part-time job that began demanding so much. Such demands very soon became too hard for me since I lived over two hours away from the unit and my civilian employer was having to rearrange the schedules of various co-workers of mine to cover my periodic absences. It's one thing for many civilians to say they support the troops but its a whole other situation when they have to give up their hunting and fishing time for someone wearing the uniform. Once I began looking to transfer it didn't take long to find a unit close to the house needing warm bodies. I was soon a member of a maintenance unit in the commo section, or communications section, making sure all the various parts of the unit and those units it supported could talk with each other. Being a fish out of water in the new unit adjusting to the new environment took a good bit of time.


While I was in air defense weekend drills most of the time had us away from the unit very early Saturday morning until late in the afternoon when we were released for the day. Sundays might have us out in the woods again but mostly we would be doing clean-up and repair on our equipment which still required us to hustle so we could get released as early as possible. I found the maintenance unit to be use to a far slower pace bordering on the glacial. Word might come down that the section needed to ride over to a different unit to look at some radios or other equipment but instead of just dispatching a vehicle and simply going we often needed to wait until some officer cleared it. That would have the section doing other stuff until we were cleared to go or have us just sitting on our thumbs waiting out of sight and out of mind of those who might throw some other detail our way. Worse was to get word that the leadership would have a whole list of important tasks and details that the unit had to get done before we could leave for the day and literally wait most of the day before such information would finally come down. Then everyone would run around for several hours trying to get issues cleared up so we all could be home at a reasonable hour before our dinner got cold and very often failing. More than a few times I would come through the door finding a sour expression of Dragonwife's face because she had made plans that my late arrival at home had ruined. The following drill weekend I would find other guys reporting a similar occurrence at their homes with their wives because of the late release. For those wearing the uniform we usually understood how the very screwed up nature of the military lead to such events and just drove on but none of us could ever get our wives, once again because of not having much contact with military life while growing up, to understand as well. All these situations that had the section and the unit doing the famous army "hurry up and wait" dance did start to wear thin after a couple of years. It was especially a pain in the ass for me once my son started to get a little older and in some activities dads should never miss, and one time I had to work outside the system to get away in time.

It was the summer of 1999 and the commo section had already finished all our Sunday tasks and was waiting for some word of when we might get released. Around 3:30pm (heck with the military time stuff) word came down that the company commander was highly upset over several issues that had not been corrected and that the unit should prepare to be very late in getting cut loose for that day. The first sergeant said that it might be as late as 7:30 to 8:00pm before we would have our final formation and then be released. At 5:00pm my son, Darth Spoilboy, would be playing in his first peewee soccer game and while I had always been a good trooper I frankly resented the idea that I would be held up for something so important because some ROTC wonder had not crossed all his T's or dotted all his I's. Plus I was in absolutely no mood to deal with Dragonwife that day and how she would act once I did return home. But the question was how could I find a way out and home that did not have me going AWOL, which was a huge world of hurt I did not want any part of on my record. It was then I spied a honest to goodness old fashion phone booth that was in the far corner of the drill hall floor while I and many others were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. The various wheels and gears in my head turned as I endeavored to fan the flames of a tiny spark of a plan. After a few minutes of sorting out all the various angles and anticipating questions I was sure to get from those above me I called my youngest brother Joe Cool. I asked him to call the unit and say that he had been in a car accident in the Columbia area that required me to take him back him to the upstate since his car would be in the shop for several days. I prepared him for a few questions that might come his way and to insist to whomever he spoke with that he had no one else to call for assistance. I then slipped out the phone booth hoping no one saw me enter or leave and went back to work. I waited long enough to start to think that Joe might have forgotten to call or had screwed it up when a very junior second lieutenant famous for being a jerk came up and handed me a message from my brother saying that he had been in a car accident and that I needed to go take him home. This being a few years before cell phones really took off there was no way of calling him back so the lieutenant took it upon himself to release me and off I went, but not before hearing the first sergeant call off in the distance for me to wait. I figured that my plan had just gone belly up since the first sergeant was an old timer and was wearing army green while I was still pooping in my diapers. He had said many times while in formation that there wasn't a scheme or trick he hadn't pulled himself and I'm sure he would have smelled my scheme just as soon as he walked up to me. But his job being what it is he was intercepted and pulled off in another direction before he got to me. The little second lieutenant that had delivered the message came by a few seconds later and asked me why I wasn't gone, I told him the first sergeant had told me to hold up but had drifted off. Looking slightly peeved at me he told me to head on out and that he would handle the first sergeant. Not being one to look a gifted horse in the mouth I hauled butt knowing that a mere second lieutenant could not simply handle the average first sergeant much less the force of nature that was ours. But as they say that was not my problem and the second lieutenant having his butt handed to him by the first sergeant would do much to temper his holier-than-thou butter bar attitude. I made a clean get away and made it to Spoilboy's soccer game in plenty of time. The following month though I kept getting knowing looks from the first sergeant but he never said anything and the second lieutenant lost a great deal of his attitude being far more an agreeable person to work around.

Back to the present, I walked up to the Sergeant Major's hospital room door and knocked, a loud and clear "come" was the answer I got. I walked in and the Sergeant Major was in his bed with his wife next to him sitting in a chair. We began talking but not about my little early out scheme and I actually began to figure he might have forgotten or let it go after all these years. About a half hour later once his doctor came in I started to leave he called out with me standing at his doorway and said he had saw me enter and leave the old phone booth and that he was in the office when the resulting phone call came in not ten minutes later. As much as I should have expected it the giggling his wife started to make suggested that I still betrayed myself with the expression on my face. Curiosity getting the better of me I asked why had not his wrath struck me down the following month since he knew something was up? He told me that the jerk of a second lieutenant had tried to play some attitude off on him and that once the aggrieved butter bar was missing a few pounds off his hind quarters I was small potatoes. He then said "dismissed staff sergeant" and I walked out laughing all the way back to work.