Drunkards and Chicken
Sometimes I wish I was a drunkard; to be able to release my inhibitions through liquid courage and give up my worries and troubles. It’s not like I don’t drink. I’ll have the occasional beer now and then, and even if coaxed into it, I might even do a shot (or two), but I can probably count on one hand the number of times I had more than a beer at a social gathering. I’m not sure why I don’t drink and sometime I feel like I’m missing out on something when I see the vast majority of people around me getting plastered and I’m sipping a Coke wondering what I’m suppose to be missing. I guess I just don’t need a beer in my hand in order to relax or have a good time. I don’t frown on folks who drink because they sure do appear like they are having a good time. In fact, ask any drunk if he’s having fun and I’ll bet that 95% of the time, they will say “yes”. The other 5% of the time they are upset because the bartender hasn’t brought them their next drink. Of course ask that same drunk later that night when they are dry heaving the contents of their stomach or the next day when they don’t want to talk to anyone if they are having fun, and I’m sure you’ll get a much different response. I get a chuckle out of the same comments every temporary recovering drunk says, and they always say the same things;
“Why did I drink so much?”
“Why did you let me drink so much?”
“I’m never going to drink again.”
“I’m sorry about your truck.”
One of the reasons that I wish I could drink myself into oblivion is that I would be relieved of my duties of taking care of those who do drink themselves into a staggering mess. Now, I don’t mind being the only sober person at a group gathering, especially if I’m responsible for getting my friends back safely to their respective beds. In fact, it’s pretty funny to watch my normally sober friends act the fool and have a good time, but its troubling at times to have to play the “parent” and try to convince them that no, they do not look good with their coat on backwards and that it wouldn’t be a good idea to poop on the bar because the bar made didn’t smile at you. Trying to reason with a drunk is like trying to walk a cat on a leash. By far the worse part is cleaning up the mess afterwards, especially if their drinks (and dinner) make a sudden appearance in the front seat of your vehicle, which was happened last night. The powers that be here at the unit decided to give us a pass to go into the local town outside the gate and relax. What started off as an innocent shopping trip with dinner at BW3s turned into a semi-bar crawl and me cleaning chicken and Yeager off the passenger side of my truck last night at 2am. Normally, I would have left it for the offending person to clean up this morning, but since the temps are falling below freezing, I figured I’d best take care of it right away or else I’d have frozen chicken chunks stuck to everything inside and outside the truck. Again, I have pictures (as I always do) so please refrain from reading further if you don’t want to see. Regardless of cleaning up barf and carrying the barffer back to his room for his driver’s training on the toilet bus, it was a good time to be out of the barracks and off of post.
Today is probably the last free day we’re going to get in a while. Our training schedule is pretty aggressive but we usually have most of our Sundays off. I plan on doing some laundry today (most of my stuff stinks like smoke from the bar last night), I’m due for a haircut and I’m going try and see if I can’t get to a computer terminal and check on my ever growing email inbox. Usually I would be able to check my email from my fancy internet accessible phone, but cell phone reception here is the worse and I can’t get through most phone conversations let alone uplink to a data connection and check my mail. I’m still trying to get internet piped into my room, however I will have to wait until next week to try and make that happen. I say “try” because I might not have time to wait for the internet guy to show up and hook the system up due to training. So, if you are reading this and emailing me, please don’t get frustrated if I don’t respond right away. The 5 minutes that I can get on the internet at the company area are rushed because the line for an open machine can sometimes take up to an hour. I’m again surprised that they wouldn’t provide us more access seeing as the world (and the Army) loves to use the internet to disseminate information (and go shopping). Uncle Sam is fairly technical savvy and takes advantage of the web in a lot of ways. Unfortunately for us Army folk, Uncle Sam is also very cheap.
2 comments:
I have always been the sober one in the group also.......maybe that's where you get it from. But the next day I do not feel so bad and I think that makes it worth it. But occasionally.............
You know it seems like people do like to lose it in your truck(as this is not the first time)!!
Grandma and Big H love the web site and asked me to pass along a message: They say hi, love you and love reading the STUFF. Keep writing when you can.
Everything at home is going good except that we miss you a lot. Take good care of yourself.
Stonz and Tramp
The best thing about being the sober one is not walking up with the headache or getting the spins. At a younger age, every time I tried to drink, I'd get sick, so I guess I've learned my lesson more than one drink is too much. One drink limit or none. I am 99% of the time designated driver. I prefer not to get sick. I also prefer not to deal with three little ones with a headache or hangover. They just don't understand. It is funny though that when you let lose what happens. Last April, I had two days away from the kids for work. Kind of work and fun. A vendor function with little work and lots of free drinks. I learned a good lesson after six years of being sober I made up for it. Luckily, I didn't get sick, but a massive headache. Sorry to hear about your truck. I have had a few friends do similar. Driving down Wayne road and puking out the window. My green celebrity was covered from the front to the rear. It was really hard to get out the next day.
We are all excited about the warm-up. It is funny when it turns 36 and we think it is warm. The kids are fighting that wonderful flu that is going around. We are also doing a computer conversion at work. It is the computer software that we inquired about when I visited Texas last September. We will be on the new system starting March 1st. It is a big change and most of us are looking forward to it. You know those people who don't like change.
Take care!
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