AH...the Good 'Ol Daze

I've been TRYING to recall the last time I heard such a mumble jumble of unrecognizable nonsense than I did last evening from the President's new "Council" on Coronavirus issues. Frankly, I almost expected, and would have even even thought more highly of them, had they all shown up with yellow vests and a bottle of Corona....but no, we just got Mike Pence.

And then, boys & girls, it struck me. I remembered the EXACT time and place I'd heard this kind of craziness before....it's true...it happened to me, it may even have happened to you.

The year was, let's see, 1974 and would have been right around June or July I'm pretty sure. The place? Oh ya, THAT I remember like it was yesterday....Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda California.

I don't even think it's there any longer....they most likely closed the place after "our" epic episode, just so it could never happen again.

I had been assigned to Vietnam but I took the long way there....via Omaha...then San Diego. I'd gone THERE to visit my sister whose husband was stationed there and was out at sea with the Navy. After a fun week of sightseeing, I boarded a plane at North Island Naval Air Station.

This was a C-127 Mail plane I think, a flying bucket of bolts. This young Navy Ensign and I sat cramped among all the crap in the back and, since I was a full fledged Flight Officer in complete and official regalia, I felt it was in poor taste that I wasn't invited up to the cockpit to see what flying such an ancient piece of hardware was really like. But no, I was stuck, literally in baggage, with my new found friend.

Apparently, the Navy has a history of sending people on one airplane and their luggage on another....imagine my surprise when we got to Alameda and, yup, no baggage. Well our wait turned into quite a debacle, and in later years legend.

So there my Navy friend and I sat, waiting on a plane that would take about 8 hours given the turnaround time and then flying at the speed of smell, to get our bags back to us.

If you've ever been a young Military person, waiting in an airport that's about the size of the average master bedroom for any length of time, then you know that a young mans fancy turns to one of two things....women, and drinking.

Apparently women were few and far between at the Naval Air Station there, except for that one hard looking female (I think she was female) that sat at the desk glaring at the two of us. Probably thinking we needed a good spanking or something, and had she been cuter I might have agreed. But.....

So Drinking it was! Let the games begin boys.

So our options, if you could call "it" that, was Coca Cola or Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Both were 25 cents a can out of the "lobby" machine.

So there we sat, sucking down suds in quarter cans of PBR thinking we were the big men on campus, and proceeding to get, well, woozy.

About three hours in, we were both feeling our pain, although I, as the Senior Officer present for duty and therefore in charge, was less woozy, at least according to the official after action report that I filed.

That's when we realized that, yup, we were out of quarters. A decision had to be made, and again, since I was "in command" of this little party, I decided to test my official ordering around powers and told the young Navy to go ask Ms. Turgid over at the window, for some quarters.

He looked at her, then at me, then at her and he obviously decided that going to the brig for failure to obey an order would be more fun than asking the "lady" in question for quarters. He declined to obey what I clearly considered, a legal and binding order. Entry number two in my after action report.

So I did what any responsible Officer in command would do, I led by example. Yup, I pulled myself upright and marched my tiny hiny right over to the window and knocked on it.

Ms. Overlord, clearly in charge with her three stripe Navy outfit, opened the window and just stared at me.

Now I felt that perhaps, just a tiny bit of levity might help here so I said...."umm, do you, ummm, like, uh, come here, ah, often, er whut?"

Line #3 in said after action report...don't bother the help at the window with semi-sexual advances. In all honesty, it wasn't an advance, it was more like a sideways kind of slithering, but I digress.

After a look that would have sent mere mortal men running to seek help and guidance, I asked for some quarters for the jukebox.

"We haven't got a jukebox in the building, Sir." Frankly, that "sir" part sounded awfully condescending, but I let it go. Wise choice as it turned out. She was the official weight lifting champion of Alameda Naval Air Station, and had been posted to the airport for just this very reason....the rest of the post was tired of her picking up men and then throwing them back down. I had no idea.

With now a roll of quarters in my possession, I proceeded to prepare to partake of more Pabst. Is that too many "P's?" Well, it's how I probably pronounced pronounciations at those precious and precarious moments. Just one of those things.

So Tony and I moved the tiny table just a tad bit closer to the beer machine so as to cut down or back on any possible accidents that might occur whilst transporting said beer from machine to table. Then we proceeded to get completely, totally and unilaterally, shitfaced.

Now THIS, right here, is the part where I've actually heard uttered, a more confused and ridiculous speech before.

So there I am, just minding my own business, even my P's and Q's if you will, passed on in front of the porcelain bus, having somehow made it from the table to the Men's room.

Suddenly, much to my surprise, I felt a not so gentle kick to my side and I opened my one good eye to find the Queen of the Airport Que staring down at me.

Admittedly, my FIRST thought was, I was right all along, "she" was a "He" and here HE is, in the mens bathroom, about to have his way with me or something and for whatever reason, my hands, legs, feet and mouth, weren't working as per usual. Go figure.

"You're in the Ladies Room you Turd." She said.

It came out something like, "I'm a room you lady and I've gotta let a turd."

I looked again, thinking surely there's been a magnificent mistake, but no, she was still there only now she was hollering and saying stuff that I didn't understand about E equals MC square or some crazy crud and I was trying to roll over so I could get up when she pushed me back down, dropped trow, and used the facilities while sitting, literally, over my head.

I began to pray. "Our Father...." If this woman lets a fart like this, it could blow me all the way back to North Island, so I did the only thing I could think of to do....I started screaming.

And then I started crawling....out from under the big trippy thing and towards safety, and the door. Then my Navy friend, who decided to come and find me, slammed open the restroom door, banged my head, and without further ado, said, "oh shit."

Ya think?

Now the POINT of my story here is this. When you hear gibberish and recognize it as such, don't wait around for them to flush because if you do, you're likely to be stuck with a bad case of Coronavirus, or at the very least, an incredibly bad hangover. What I know about hangover is this, you'll WISH it was the Coronavirus, because when it hits you, you KNOW you're going to have to die to get better.

And oh Ya....when you're stuck buying PBR for a quarter a can out of the vending machine at the airport and some gal at the window is giving you a hard time about getting more quarters, it might just be the right time to head out on a different adventure before you're stuck between her legs in absolutely the wrong way.

I do believe, however, that Ms. Rigid has a better chance of solving the Corona Virus problem than trump and pence....just my quarters worth there.