I feel like I just finished up one of those missions. You know the simple ones where it's just a two shipper landing to drop off some supplies
Then
lead gets shot down in the LZ and the whole hornets nest starts jumping on ya.
You know, when the QRF gets activated, the C130 shows up and a couple of Apaches shoot at something and miss.
The kind of op where you weren't expectin' much but ended up flyin two birds into the ground over the next 48 hours just trying to get out of there in one piece
One of those sort of missions...
Wife volunteered our home for a one and three year old birthday party.
It was yesterday
Which was Saturday at 1500
Now I was just drawn (Sucked, or suckered) into the mess. Sounded benign enough.
We cleaned the house all day Thursday
Then it went way deep into the night. Non stop fixin' and cleaning. I guess I may have discovered a new wisdom about work, that being that: Cleanin' begat fixin'!
The cleanin' finally ended. Ah, err, well I guess it didn't end. The cleaning went on all night long!
That was because we had to pause to go to a football game, where again, the pre-ranger got "THE" tackle of the game killing the Q-back for a 23 yard loss, then later recovered a fumble. We won that one.
Well, anyway we got back around 2300 and continued "mop-ops".
Somehow this cleaning up translated into my installing new weather stripping on the doors, tearing out a hose closet I had built outside, and cleaning both garages and re-filing crap in my filing cabinet.
We purchased north of $500 in food that no one eats, out of our food budget, that is now shot all to hell and back. We had to prepare that food, and then array it all over the kitchen.
I think that approximately five hundred kids showed up like those yellow jackets in Tex's unexpected meeting in the Texas, and commenced to undo all our work. You know, cake icing on the walls, every drawer opened and several doors slammed off their hinges.
The little dog ran off for fear of its life after being fondled seven million times and having one eye poked and an ear pulled off, but that was the good news.
We learned that carpet will absorb a gallon of lemonade and holds it better when lathered over with a pot of warm beer-cheese.
Somewhere around five I was going for my shotgun when I think I passed out from fatigue or possibly a heart attack, and that little bast__d was not harmed and I did not get to shoot anyone...pity
So after three hours of suppressing a strong desire to apply choke holds for more than the recommended seven seconds, our "Wonderful" guests started to leave.
I heard my wife say, "Oh don't worry about the mess, we'll clean it up." To me those words sounded like a satanic worship chant, as our occupiers slithered off leaving the beirut looking glacier moraine field in their wake.
So what does one do after working 36 hours straight?
Remember the second axiom of work: Work creates more work?
Applies here!
And the third: Once one has worked it sets in motion a series of events that will always create more work.
Well with both of those principals "At work" here,when the people all left, we were not done.
Nope, work begat more work and little people can multiply the effect.
So the cleanup began. We did get some help, but frankly I can't remember much of what happened next or for the next few hours.
All I can testify to for sure is seeing the number 2035 on the clock at some point, a dog climbing over me on the bed and wrestlin' with the "Mattress rascal blanket snatcher" and this morning waking up at a rather early 1002! It's now 1.5 hours later and with a fresh fill of quoffee, the events of the last few days are settling in.
I am scratching out a very short list of notes for the after-action review.
So far it simply reads: I will never do this again.
