Days In The Life of Wayne
Typical Day
Random Thoughts and Things That Happened. Warning: They could be just about
anything, but I try to pick the funny ones. And I'm not afraid to point out when I
look stupid--and there's plenty of that! Some comments might be offensive, they
might not. Some of my beliefs on life, women, race, and love may offend...and often
contradict. Wrestling with thoughts shows that I'm thinking about it.
Example: All men are created equal....but I know there's discrimination....but I
know equal opportunity informal quota systems are reverse discrimination....but it's been
a great balacer, pulling minorities into the middle class so I don't mind....until it I
was the only qualified individual and a lot of justification had to be done to get me
hired...etc. I'll try and stick with the funnier stuff.
Thoughts 1985 1986 1987
1988 1989 1990
1991 1992 1993
1994 1995 1996
1997 1998
Typical Day
So what's a typical day with Wayne like? I tell a lot of stories about things that happen
to me and at times people have questioned how I get into all these situations. I
don’t try, things just happen to me, I swear. Vacations are usually my most dangerous
times, but life always seems to weave a little dance around me.
Most of the time it's really not that exciting. Run (sometimes), then work, class, back to work, home, study (sometimes) and bed for another go-around. Here's an example from my phone conversation.
Ajit: "What are you doing?
Wayne: "Studying"
Ajit: "No, what are you really doing?"
Wayne: "Playing Battlezone. I've cleared the Russians off Mars."
But when I do go out and around, I stumble into fun. Let me pull a typical day out of last week (October 28, 98). I grabbed BJ (we were going to do homework…there were just some errands along the way) and we headed to Tom Thumb. We went around getting our stuff. I only needed a couple things, so I spent most of my time following BJ and juggling whatever was at hand. The bags of pistachios were a bit of a challenge because the nuts keep shifting around and it throws off the balance. Fruit and small cans were much easier. The 2 liter bottles of pop…let's just say it's a good thing they're plastic.
After we got all our groceries (me riding the cart part of the way), we headed into line. I beat the bagger and bagged my own stuff, then I bagged BJ's. Because I couldn't get the cashier to toss the stuff down far enough to me, I wound up standing on the lower counter (the spot used to stack the bags), leaning way over the counter and grabbing the stuff. BJ was embarrassed.
He was also taking way too much time to pay. I headed to the next counter over and started bagging the next person's groceries and started chatting with the cashier and a 30ish poorer looking woman who didn't understand who this stranger was and why he was grabbing her groceries…until I started putting them into a bag.
Eventually, everything was settled up, loaded up, and we left the store. I rode the cart through the parking lot (I ride around the parking lot quite a bit. It's downhill from the door at this grocery store, one of the reasons I like it.) We loaded up and took off. I needed gas, so we headed down the street to get some. While we were at the station filling up, were BS'ing and I kept tossing my keys up in the air and catching them…until the third time when they got stuck, just barely on the edge, off the sign way above the pumps. They were just dangling there, teasing me, and refusing to fall.
I climbed up and stood on top the steel and concrete post used to protect the pumps from cars ramming them. I was about three feet up (1 meter for my Australian relatives) and jumped as high as I dared. I was worried about the landing—I was starting off three feet in the air and besides getting concrete pole in the groin, I also had to worry about landing on the six inch ledge and breaking an ankle.
I jumped a couple of times but didn't make it. If it were flat land, it would have been easy because there would have been no fear. Then BJ grabbed a big towel out of my car and, when standing on the pole, I was able to snag the keys and pull them down after a couple of tries. We were able to continue on our journey.
This time it was down through the hood. Lucky for us, the village boarders right on the bad part of town so it wasn't a far drive. In fact, given where we stopped for gas, it's really the most direct route back to BJ's. Usually, we avoid it, but this time we went straight through. We drove down into the bad part of town and got eyed by a lot of scary looking people. It was the part of town where young males hang out in groups, standing around at night drinking large bottles of malt liquor out of paper bags. It would not have been a good time to have the car break down.
We made it home safe from there and brought BJ's stuff inside. I came in for a while and when I left, BJ came back out with me to get his lettuce. A quick search in the car revealed that the last bag was his and the bag with my groceries was back at the store. It was too late to go back and try and straighten it out with the store, so I just went home. I told BJ that $10 was a cheap price to pay for all the fun we had that night.
And that's a typical day for me. Like I've always said, I don't plan my misadventures, they just happen.
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Thoughts 1985
From 85-05-14 Jay Cameli: Hi again, Jay. Haven't much to say but wanted
to throw in what happened to me at work last night. This is a true story. Terry was
sitting down at the end of the counter near the sink. I was washing dishes. Some big black
man, I'd seen him around before, came up to her and they started talking. When he got up
to leave, she said, "Bye, Homer." I looked up quick and said, "Your name is
Homer?" "Yes," he replied. "Can you come here for a second," I
said. He came over to the back door and looked down at me. He's tall. I hit him softly in
the side of the arm. He looked at me like I was wierd or something, so I said in
explanation, "Thanks. I always wanted to hit a Homer." It took him a little bit
to recover from that one. Pretty good, Eh?
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Thoughts 1986
From 86-04-24 Jay Cameli: I've got to go, Jay. It's nearing ten and I
have to get ready to go to bed. By the way, remember when all the deal was going over the
cost of the Zero-g toilet that was costing the government two thousand each or something
like that? And how everybody was getting all upset over it and all the different
government departments were blaming it on all the other departments? Well, I was curious
so I ordered some of the blueprints. I was particularly interested in the rotating blades
labeled as the device to "seperate liquid from solid waste." As far as I could
tell, the shit was supposed to hit the fan.
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Thoughts 1987
From 87-03-07 Pat Dean: Did I mention I'm only an hour away from Canada? Not the
Canada you may know, but the strip bar Canada (Montreal). Remember, English may be the
main language but French is giving it a run for it's money. The drinking age is whenever
you can reach the bar. It's legal for us AF people to drink here on base in an effort to
stop us from going to Canada and driving back drunk. The only thing to remember is to
exchange your money before you go-if you let the bars do it for you the waitresses will
take a hefty fee off the top and not tell you-and then they come straight out and ask for
a tip!
From 87-04-26 Pat Dean:Here at H & R Crock, we'll help you file your returns like politicians. Declare all of your household pets as dependents. Declare your dogs, cats, goldfish, and yes, even extra-terrestrials and four out of five dentists. Declare your neighbors house. Declare that you financed Hurricane Juan and other natural catastrophes. Claim that everyone you know is blind and over 65. Yes, call H & R Crock. . .today.
From 87-05-27 Jay Cameli: We drank a lot a P-burgh. I was in a chugging contest--we used pitchers of beer. But there in the Airman's club, the drinking age was anything. It kept us from driving an hour north to Montreal to get plastered. I had two good drunks there. And I learned Long Island Ice Tea is not a drink to be chugged.
From 87-06-01 Pat Dean: . At 2:22 (by my watch) I was down on the runway watching an FB take off. It taxied down, sat and prechecked, got in position, and fired up with brakes on. Afterburner kicked in, flames way out (5th stage afterburner, meaning max power)-brakes released and off it went. It looked beautiful. The air rumbled, the ground shook. I can't describe it, it has to be felt.
From 87-08-17 Jeanine Dickett: Crew chiefs and specialists fight constantly. We call them the couch potato squadron (he may work-or rather, be at work-two or three hours before they tell him to go home for the night) and they call us a bunch of dumb panel pushers. On the last stall in the men's bathroom is where most of the debate goes on. They talk about they're the ones offered reenlistment bonuses to stay in and not us, and we tell them to think about it--they've got to be bribed to stay in (in actuality, it really shows where the demand for people is. If the AF is low in a certain field, they offer the people already in bonuses to stay in). One of the best comebacks was when some weird specialist went off in some long (for the stall, anyway) flowery speech about how "We're called special because we're just that, special." One of the Crew Dogs penciled in, "Is that special as in Jerry's Kids?"
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Thoughts 1988
From 88-01-12 Pat Dean: Rob got in a little accident...after finishing off a whole
bunch of beer, he was doing shots of Everclear. On his third shot, he couldn't take it and
spit it out--on the guy next to him. That guy was lighting a cigarette. The flame went
right up to Rob-and lit his face on fire. He tried to put it out with his hands, and set
them on fire, too. He was doing his Richard Pryor imitation and had to spend three days in
a plastic bubble. When I saw him, all that was really messed was under his chin and the
webbing between his thumb and first finger on each hand. Still, he got lucky and didn't
have any scars.
...at the door I was wearing tennis shoes. The bouncer was telling me I needed shoes, and then when I said I'd go home and change, he told me to forget it, rules are made to be broken. Then, he asked for my ID. I hid the drivers license. Showing the military ID (they want three picture ID's), I pulled out all the non-pics I've got--about ten more. I went slow, and I was driving him nuts. He finally said he'd take the military ID, and when he saw the birth date on it, he pulled me aside and said, "Hey, pal, I'm gonna let you go this time, but why don't you get a fake ID or something." I went in and didn't have to pay the cover charge.
Sunday the twentieth--Blew off most of the day, again. That night I went over to Derek Espeland's house (my friend in the Marines). We traded war stories for a couple of hours, then we went over to see Malcolm McCurry. Tom was back visiting his grandparents. Now, I've got to add that my parents no longer have the Olds 98 (the brown one), Mom's got a new Bonneville. It's got one of those twilight sensors in it that turn on the lights automatically when it gets to a certain level of darkness, then turns them off about fifteen seconds after you pull the key. So when Derek and I get out of the car and walk away, he says, "Hey Wayne, you left your lights on." I said, "Oh, yeah. LIGHTS!" and right after I said it, they went off. He said that it was pretty cool, and I told him that there was a little voice sensor that recognized words and would turn them off. He fell for it. So the four of us BS'ed for a while, then hung around waiting for Malcolm's parents to fall asleep so Malcolm could go out.
When we got to the party, we got out of the car. Now Tom and Malc gave me the lights line. Derek told them about it and they all started yelling. When nothing happened, I told them about outside noise interference and all that, and yelled "Lights" while they were quiet. Bingo. The cops were at the party so we left and went to the Wags in Grenoble plaza. I drove behind the stores because I used to work at the Pizza N Things there delivering pizza's. I did it out of habit. When we got to Wag's, everyone jumped out real quick and started yelling "Lights!" I was just getting out of the car. Malcolm and Tom each stuck their face in a headlight and were screaming it at the top of their lungs. Derek watched from a little farther away. I did the noise thing again and it worked. As we walked up to Wags, Tom and Malc were in front, and Derek came up to me and said, "You know, Wayne, I counted and the lights always go off at the same time." I told him, "Yeah, but don't tell Tom and Malcolm that, they're enjoying it." Unfortunately they heard. I enjoyed it while it lasted, though. I'll probably never forget the sight of those two, their face about six inches away from the car, screaming into the headlights.
When we left Wags, we went behind the plaza again and saw a cop sitting on the side. I commented, "Ya know, he's probably not going to pick up many speeders sitting there." We drove out and the cop started following us wherever we went as I drove REAL careful, for about five minutes. He finally turned on his lights, pulled me over, and came up to me and asked for my licensee. I gave it to him while conveniently flashing my military ID. He caught it. He looked over my license and gave it back to me, saying I could go. When I asked him why he pulled me over he said it was because people were breaking into the stores in the plaza from the back, and he was watching and waiting. As I was closing the window and the cop was walking away, Malcolm started screaming, "What's the matter, is it because he's got a black man in the car!" Tom was trying to pig-pile him and keep him quiet. I drove away as fast as I could, children wrestling in the back seat. Just what I needed. We looked like criminals, too. New car, everyone sorta dressed up, me all in all white. Real good. We spent the rest of the night tossing stories around at Malcolm's.
...Rob and I went out that night in his Supra and drank alcohol while we saw "Batteries Not Included." We were sitting in the back and had a pile of bottles on the floor of the theaters, and when he got up to go to the bathroom, he knocked all the bottles down. They rolled all the way down...I just schrunched lower and gave a little push to the rest.
From 88-01-23 Pat Dean: My flight chief (an NCO) gave me a direct order and I disobeyed it: "You will go to alert with 510" (one of the FB-111's). I'd miss half my classes. I supplied him with someone from my shift who wanted to go to alert, who we wanted to get rid of (Chris). Why did we want to get rid of him? There's only one crescent wrench in our box. There are about five open end wrenches. Mike asked Chris to hand him the crescent wrench, and Chris said "What size?" Trust me, he is the most mechanically declined person I've ever met, and now we got rid of him.
Now, part two. Mids has fourteen people and does much maintenance. We are (new orders) supposed to have all the jets ready to be launched by six am. Dayshift sixteen and does nothing but launch, and some maintenance if swings and mids cannot fix the jets. The flight chief (again MSgt Hojlo, or Sgt. Hoho, as we fondly call him) gave me another direct order in the way of an ultimatum. Either, go to alert with a different jet, or go to day shift while they send someone. This he gave me to my face, not in a note like the first, and I told him again to his face, "No." He didn't like that. Then I suggested that my friend on mids, Dave Baily, wanted to go to days while I was in college and did not. Again he grudgingly accepted. Then he told me, "You're on my list, Sanaghan." He didn't say which list, but I can guess. Then I opened my big mouth and said, "Yeah, but I always seem to squeak out, don't I." He gave me a nasty look that means I'd better be watching my tukas from now on.
From 88-02-05 Jay Cameli: (To really enjoy this one you need to realize that
now, in 1998:
1. I'm still going to school working on my masters, and I've got an MBA to go.
2. I'm exempt, so I don't get paid for overtime.
3. I have to make up the time for personal appointments amd school, so I get up at 5 am
4. With National Guard, I give up one weekend a month, instead of 1 in 5 or 6.
5. I still ask "How many more years?" in reference to both the military AND
school. )
Pat, I work five days a week, go to school four, and now this weekend (one every five) I
have weekend duty, when I have to be in at five in the morning. And it's no eight hour
day, it's twelve (or until the work is done, but we have a competition coming up so it's
be twelve) (Plus I've got a lot of homework). Working nights, I had an appointment during
the day for chemical warfare. What I'm saying is I keep busy, and time goes by fast. Once
I hit the civilian sector, it'll be no problem. At least there you got paid for overtime,
and you don't have all these silly appointments on your own time. I will persevere. It's
just. . .how many more years?
From 88-02-05 Pat Dean [I was in the hospital with a severe case of food poisoning that I let go on too long without treatment due to a military exercise. Now they were measuring every drop of liquid, in or out, from every part of my body since I was very dehydrated. I had bad diarrhea and kept vomiting. In the military, you lose all your modesty--see the Military page comments about MEPS! As our story starts, I had rushed into the bathroom again, a little too slow, and I was starting to pass out.]
...Then, the world started to get farther away. I was also noticing this air bubble in my IV heading towards my vein. And I just told the nurse I was all right! The world was retreating, the bubble was advancing, I was a mess (both the shape I was in and how I had messed on myself, front and back) and no one was going to check on me. As I was blacking out, I got up, clutching the IV rack and managed to reach the string and pull it for help. The airman (A1C) nurse assistance responded quickly and called for help. They laid me on the ground in front of the bathroom and the Captain nurse said, "talk to me" or something like that.
I was retreating into darkness and couldn't really come up with anything clever or witty at the moment, so I kept quiet. She looked and sounded pretty far away, too. They all started to do things to calm me and relax me—hey, I was about to take a nap. How much more relaxed do you get? The Capt. broke smelling salts under my nose (they smell like ammonia--I immediately thought of Venus and turned away from it). After I finally came back to Earth, they let me walk to my bed (with help) and at least let me clean myself up, again with help. They were professional, but it's a little embarrassing. They put the rails up on my bed and wouldn't let me even go to the bathroom without help. Did you ever have a pretty nurse, who you were fond of (the Freudian syndrome, she was helping me when I felt pretty rotten and all that), walk you to the bathroom, come in and try and help you (remember, all 'output' was measured)? "O.K, you can go now?" Did you ever try to keep either your cool or your dignity in a situation like that? Well, neither have I.
...Let me tell you about my friends new used car. It's a little Sprint. Here's six good reasons why you shouldn't buy one.
From 88-00-00 Name: Coming Soon
From 88-00-00 Name: Coming Soon
From 88-00-00 Name: Coming Soon
From 88-00-00 Name: Coming Soon
From 88-00-00 Name: Coming Soon
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