"Thank you for your service." Over half the people that say that have no idea what our "service" even is and the REAL shit we have to go through. There's a lot of places in southwest Asia and the Middle East that you can deploy to. Almost all of them, except for Afghanistan and the Himalayan Pearl that is Manas, are in really hot countries. It's great we finally got out of Iraq...but I miss it. It's January now. The temperature is in the upper 70's in Iraq. Here in Afghanistan, it won't get above freezing for almost 3 more months. And then it will suddenly get uncomfortably hot and dry...and then more mortar attacks start...and then all our shipments from Amazon get delayed...and then the REAL suffering starts.
Afghanistan sucks because you have to prepare for the hot AND cold. The cold is worse because that means at least 2 extra bags you have to lug around. But at least you can use those bags to put on top of you to help keep you warm as you sleep. After awhile you'll start putting pieces of plywood under and over yourself to stay warm. Makes sense. Wood is a good insulator. It has to work. I hope so. Fuck it's cold here. There's gotta be WMDs left in Iraq. We gotta find them! Send my ass back there so I can work on my tan! The Air Force has a chart for a work/rest period for when it gets too hot. If it gets above a certain temperature, we have to take a break from working outside every 30 minutes, or sometimes even more frequently depending on the temperature. It's never really practiced though, especially in my job because they won't allow it since getting an Air Force plane delayed is right up there with friendly fire in terms of fucking up, but with more paperwork. It's just nice to know there IS a chart out there for heat and that we COULD get our bosses in trouble for it if someone actually did pass out from heat exhaustion. But if someone is hot and tired, how do you fix it? Sit down and drink water for a minute. Bam. Done. Good to go. But there is no cold weather chart in the Air Force. They just expect you to work through the frost bite. And there isn't a quick, 'Take a drink of water' type fix for the extreme cold. You're only hope is to just keep working so hard in the cold that your whole body becomes numb and you can't feel anything anymore. That's all we have to hope for here. And I also hope that no one from the Army or Marines ever reads my blog because I just gave them more ammo for their, 'The Air Force are Pussies' thesis with this whole chart thing.
There is only one real way to beat the cold though. The answer?...a heated blanket. Hoooolllyyyyy fuck! How did I survive so long without one?? It's a blanket....that's heated!! I hope whoever invented it won the Nobel Peace Prize. If they ever come up with a once-a-century Jesus Award, I hope he get's that too. And I only assume a man invented it because when it gets too cold for a women, all they want to do is crank the heat up and complain how it's still not hot enough and how you should call a repair man because it's not constantly 80 degrees in the house. A very smart man once thought, 'I only need heat in one room while I sleep so I don't want to waste money heating the whole house. A small electric portable heater is ok, but it only keeps a very small area warm. It also uses a lot of energy for a tiny device and can be dangerous and start a fire. But wait a second...I have an idea...a warm blanket! Ya! A heated blanket! It's cheap and keeps your whole body warm! Awesome! Now I just have to hide it from my wife who is ALWAYS fucking cold. MY idea! MY rules bitch!'
I love my heated blanket. It gets me excited just to go to bed. It's all I can think about at work. I just lay in bed happy covered in warmth like I'm being spooned by a fat chick. It's great! I haven't looked into it, and it seems like an idea too good NOT to be invented yet, but the only thing that could possibly be better than a heated blanket...is a wireless rechargeable heated Snuggie. Ya. Think about it. Did you just moan a little bit? I did. I just had to sit back in my chair right now and think about it some more. Damn. I'm not even done yet. I'm having a wet dream now about a wireless rechargeable heated Snuggie.
--Intermission--
Are you good? Calmed down yet? I know that was a lot to take in and I may have just changed the world with that wireless rechargeable heated Snuggie idea, but we must move on.
The only bad thing about a heated blanket...getting up from a heated blanket. All the rooms here are freezing. There are heaters in the room and you can set the temperature, but all that temperature gage does is tell lies. And the so-called 'heat' that comes out of them is about the same amount of heat that is exerted from a small dog's breath. I usually wake up an hour and a half earlier than I want to because my roommate is on a slightly different schedule than me. His alarm goes off at 730 but doesn't get up until 8. He hits the 5 minute snooze button 6 times. So I get to hear his alarm clock go off 6 times a day...every day...for 6 months. JUST SET YOUR GOD DAMN ALARM AT 8 AND WAKE UP THEN!!! FUCK!! And what is the first thing you have to do after waking up? Take a piss. There's only 4 toilets for the 32 people on each floor to share. Which is actually one of the highest ratios on the whole base which I will talk more about later. But to get to the bathrooms you have to walk down a frozen hallway. The hallway is the same temperature as outside but with only slightly less wind. And just pray you aren't walking down the hallway after you wake up in your shorts and slippers as someone is opening an outside door. The wind gusts sweeps through your body like a frozen dagger. You are feeling cold everywhere as if someone just threw a bucket of icy water on you. You start walking faster to the bathroom in hopes that there is a huge pile of fresh steaming shit in the toilet that someone forgot to flush again because at least that turd will raise the temperature by one degree. I start brushing my teeth with hot water in hopes that I can get the temperature around the sink to raise another degree. We are told to conserve water and to not take showers longer than 3 minutes. But if no one is around, I'll turn the showers on with hot water when I'm not even inside them just to thaw out my fingers and be able to find my penis again. This is how I start every morning in Afghanistan. Freezing and searching for my penis.
And there's one group of people that would love to find my penis for me...the Afghani cleaners. They are a group of 5-6 tiny M.C Hammer pants wearing broke-ass Aladins who move from building to building carrying trash bags, mops, sponges, and dirty towels. They are always laughing, singing, whistling, and moving quickly in a fluid motion like a flock of dirty birds in flight. They seem very pleasant, but they scare the shit out of me. They're so quick. Like brown ninjas. They will walk into your shower or bathroom stall without you ever knowing and greet you with a smile while standing there motionless. And only after giving you eye raping stares for 8 seconds, they will finally say, 'Ah scuzi. Scuzi sir. Did no see you. Please, continue what you do. Me just watch...I mean clean...and watch."
They have a set routine of how they clean and they will never break that routine. They clean the 2nd floor showers from 1105-1112. They start on the shower at the farthest right and move to the left. If you are in the middle shower around 1110, at least 2 of them will stand right outside your shower curtain, FACING the shower curtain, and wait for you to get out. And as you walk out, the other 4 will poke their heads around the corner and smile in hopes that your towel falls off. That's why I put my clothes on while still in the shower. I even keep the hot water running as I'm changing to keep me warm, but also just to let the cleaners know I'm still using it. I now know when to shower, but it's still scary. You never know when a mustached rapist is lurking around the corner. And the ironic thing is that they clean showers for a living yet have never taken one themselves. Thank God they aren't allowed to take showers in my building. Otherwise I would be taking Baby Wipe showers in my bedroom for the next 6 months. I'm also pretty sure they would break the 3 minute shower rule on their finger nails alone, because God knows they need it.
After work, getting ready for bed is a little less scary but still not easy. Mainly because my roommate is usually already sleeping by the time I get home and the lights will be off and I have to be extra quite. But just in case he is still up, I usually make slow moving and loud foot steps to our door while walking down the hallway. This is just a warning tactic I do in case he's jerking off or doing anything weird in the room. The last thing I want to do is walk in on someone doing naked squat thrusts while listening to Olivia Newton John. We wouldn't be able to look each other in the eye for the next 6 months after that. Though it would make for a good story in my blog, the lifetime of nightmares I would have after such an event would just not be worth it. I'm not overly loud when walking in the hallway, I don't want to wake anyone up...I just want people who are up doing creepy things to maybe step back for a moment and be prepared to stop all penis-tucking-between-the-legs-in-front-of-a-mirror operations.
When I open my door, I have to open and close it really quickly because it sounds like a whale having sex every time it moves. I have no idea why. It's the only door that does it. This whale orgasm wakes me up every time I hear it but luckily my roommate is a deep sleeper and it rarely effects him. I go to my side of the room, turn on a tiny flashlight and grab my bathroom items before heading through the whale sanctuary opening again. I wash up, brush my teeth, come back, open the door again and go to my bed. I don't hear my roommate. No shuffling. No wake-up farting. I think I did it. I got ready for bed and didn't wake anyone! It makes me feel so proud. I start putting things away, I turn my electric blanket on, put the heat level on 'Hell,' I grab my phone and set the alarm on it, I put my phone down on the small table next to me...but missed...and it fell...and bounced and hit my locker which caused my deodorant to fall off the top shelf, which caused the top of it to pop off on the ground. I stopped and didn't move a muscle. It was completely quite again and my roommate still didn't wake up. Un...fucking...believable. So I got up out of bed to pick up everything and I stepped on the deodorant cap. 'FUUCK!!' I screamed. And that did it. I heard my roommate wake up and turn and take a deep breath. I felt bad. But at least it was all over and I was finally ready to go to bed. I was tucked in with my heated blanket wrapped around me. It was quite again all around the building. Time to sleep. Another day to cross off the calendar. I close my eyes and start to think of a happy place. Somewhere warm. Maybe a secluded island perhaps. Sitting on the beach having a beer. Not a care in the world. But then I hear something. A pattering. I quick constant beating. It starts to get a little louder and a little faster. It sort of sounds like a helicopter getting close. Am I about to be visited by someone cool in my dream? Am I having hot pizza delivered to me by a helicopter? Or am I just waking up from my dream and hearing the sounds of Bagram again through my window? I open my eyes and it's none of the above...it's just my roommate jerking off again. Damn it! Again! Yup. Only 165 days more of this to go. At least I learned that jerking off underneath a sleeping bag sounds just like a Blackhawk helicopter taking off. There's a metaphor you haven't seen in any book yet. First! Suck on that one Tom Clancy!
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