Well, the flies have returned from wherever it is they vacation during the winter months. Before you question the timing of that statement, consider the general heartiness of animals native to Afghanistan. When they decide winter is over...it's over. Those who know me are aware of my softer side when it comes to animals. If the choices are to 'squash' or 'usher them towards the door, I always choose the latter. (That kindness does not extend to bloodsuckers. They die on the spot...no questions asked.) My policy of détente with insects has been a source of friction in my marriage for as long as I've been married. My wife views the insect nation as a scourge that must be eradicated. She's convinced that all bugs have but one goal: to crawl in her mouth while she sleeps. As I've conducted no studies related to her claim, I can't dispel her assertion a 'crazy'. To keep the peace I must occasionally acquiesce to her warmongering spirit and send a spider to oblivion. Though I always do so in protest.
When I arrived in Afghanistan, I decided the bugs here deserved no less of a chance at living a happy, productive two weeks than their American counterparts. On the first day of flies, which we'll refer to as F-day, a couple got into my CHU. No worries...I'll simply 'shoo' them towards the door and carry on with my work. It worked like a charm until I opened the door. Turns out the flies pulled the old 'Rope-a-Dope' on me. The two I tried to get out flew behind me and six more flew in. Okay...flies are disgusting, but as long as they didn't bother me I'd let them live. We lived in harmony for about two minutes before the fun began.
The squadron of flies began swarming me as if I owed them money. They would land on my head, neck, ear, hand; anywhere with skin. This gang wanted me to know they were crawling on me. My day soon became an episode of the 'Three Stooges'...with only one stooge, of course. It was a pathetic scene. I was hitting myself in the back of the head, slapping my ears, hitting my neck; pure abuse! The flies mockingly flew around my face, and while I can't be sure, I think I heard two laughing. The flies nearly succeeded in driving me out of the room until one crossed the line. The fly, who I'm sure planned this from the beginning landed on my left eyelid. Doing what comes natural, I tried to get the fly away from my eye...with my fist. Yes, I punched myself in the eye. But that wasn't enough for this jerk. He landed on my right eyelid, which caused me to punch myself in that eye. And with that, détente ended. I immediately adopted my wife's insect policy...obliteration.
I grabbed a magazine and started swatting those jerks out of the sky with the force of Barry Bonds on steroids. (Or maybe I should just say Barry Bonds...) Once on the ground, I stomped them like the dirt they were. Only they didn't stop moving with one stomp, or two. I had to stomp these invertebrates with a laughable shell of a body three times to kill them...all eight of them. The flies back home normally died in the fall, but these Afghan flies require additional violence to be dispatched.
From there, the flies have only gotten worse. Instead of attacking me head-on, they now use psychological operations to drive me crazy. They'll land my head, sprint across, then fly away. The result? I'm always checking my head for flies! Turns out the asses may come out on top after all (Mom: sorry about the potty word, but you'd call them that too if you were here.) I'm sure the fly saga will continue to drive me batty, and with the addition of gnats and malarial mosquitoes, things should get interesting quick.
-ckj
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Life Lessons...and Such
After much gnashing of teeth, I've come to terms with not being able to upload pictures to my blog. As a product of the MTV generation, I need visuals to compensate for my lack of imagination. For the younger folks out there, I'm speaking of the time when MTV played music...not shows where Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen hook up to engage in random unholiness. (I guess she took Ivan Drago's loss to Rocky pretty hard.) But before we stray too far off course, let's regroup.
As I was saying, pictures are those necessary gap fillers to keep a person's attention without making the author work too hard. After all, story without pictures is like Thanksgiving without food...all that's left is conversation. And let's be honest, do you really care about Aunt Sally's bunions? Without food, how would you distract that cousin who always wants to 'borrow' money, but never plans on paying you back? If we were forced to rely solely on relationships to get us through Thanksgiving, we'd never visit most of our relatives again! We need the gorge-induced stupor to get us over the hump (or humps, as Andy Sipowicz would say).
This week's blog entry is about the combination people, places, and circumstances that make up those nuggets of wisdom called 'life lessons'. I had the opportunity to live in Alaska for a few years. Anyone who fails to run away from me within the first few minutes of being introduced will soon know my love of 'The Last Frontier'. I love everything about the state...except the mosquitoes. If I had but one word to describe those little buggers, I'd choose 'aggressive'. How bad are they? During the initial spawn they'll try to get blood from anything, including wood. I witnessed a mosquito repeatedly sticking her 'blood chute' into different parts of the banister on our balcony. Not just wood...painted, treated wood! Anyway, today's life lesson is about teamwork and how there are limits to what a friend will do for you.
Teamwork is touted as the lifeblood of all organizations (as opposed to the 'deathblood', I guess). It's a way of controlling the by-products of people naturally forming cliques and clubs based on similarities among them. 'Jocks and nerds', as it were. The military is no different, only teamwork here could mean taking a bullet for your buddy. Service members often form bonds with each other that eclipse those they have with family members. All for one and one for all, except...
During a nice organizational run (PT for the laymen) through the woods, we were joined by a black bear cub. It wasn't threatening us; the little guy just wanted to play. First, allow me to say such a situation is only cute in cartoons. In real life, cubs are never far from mom...who tends to get angry when humans are near her babies. You can try to debate this with the parent, but I assure you it's a fruitless endeavor and you'll just end up one of two ways:
1. Dead
2. Almost dead, but wishing you were fully dead
That means when you see a young animal whose mature parent outweighs you by several hundred pounds, consider the baby a walking billboard for 'FREE BRUTAL DEATH'. So the baby is jogging along with us, and its sibling is at the wood's edge excitedly jumping around ready to join in. I then heard two things that sent chills down my spine. The first was mama bear angrily coming out of the woods. The second was one of my comrades yelling words I'll never forget:
“Every man for himself”...the battle cry uttered prior to being trampled by your friends trying to escape. Consider the phrase a liability waiver for all involved. Almost in unison, 25 adults began screaming and frantically running away from the cub. The startled cub ran back to momma, who quickly herded her babies into the brush. It was at that point I realized few people are willing to be ripped apart by an angry animal...especially if they're not the slowest person in the group.
That's it for this week. While you're pondering my lesson in teamwork, I hope you'll join me in raising awareness of something that plagues our world. We need to have the citizens in developed, developing, and undeveloped nations join together and ban ear-buds. Why? Because one always falls out of my ear while I'm exercising, which means they suck and should go away.
-ckj
As I was saying, pictures are those necessary gap fillers to keep a person's attention without making the author work too hard. After all, story without pictures is like Thanksgiving without food...all that's left is conversation. And let's be honest, do you really care about Aunt Sally's bunions? Without food, how would you distract that cousin who always wants to 'borrow' money, but never plans on paying you back? If we were forced to rely solely on relationships to get us through Thanksgiving, we'd never visit most of our relatives again! We need the gorge-induced stupor to get us over the hump (or humps, as Andy Sipowicz would say).
This week's blog entry is about the combination people, places, and circumstances that make up those nuggets of wisdom called 'life lessons'. I had the opportunity to live in Alaska for a few years. Anyone who fails to run away from me within the first few minutes of being introduced will soon know my love of 'The Last Frontier'. I love everything about the state...except the mosquitoes. If I had but one word to describe those little buggers, I'd choose 'aggressive'. How bad are they? During the initial spawn they'll try to get blood from anything, including wood. I witnessed a mosquito repeatedly sticking her 'blood chute' into different parts of the banister on our balcony. Not just wood...painted, treated wood! Anyway, today's life lesson is about teamwork and how there are limits to what a friend will do for you.
Teamwork is touted as the lifeblood of all organizations (as opposed to the 'deathblood', I guess). It's a way of controlling the by-products of people naturally forming cliques and clubs based on similarities among them. 'Jocks and nerds', as it were. The military is no different, only teamwork here could mean taking a bullet for your buddy. Service members often form bonds with each other that eclipse those they have with family members. All for one and one for all, except...
During a nice organizational run (PT for the laymen) through the woods, we were joined by a black bear cub. It wasn't threatening us; the little guy just wanted to play. First, allow me to say such a situation is only cute in cartoons. In real life, cubs are never far from mom...who tends to get angry when humans are near her babies. You can try to debate this with the parent, but I assure you it's a fruitless endeavor and you'll just end up one of two ways:
1. Dead
2. Almost dead, but wishing you were fully dead
That means when you see a young animal whose mature parent outweighs you by several hundred pounds, consider the baby a walking billboard for 'FREE BRUTAL DEATH'. So the baby is jogging along with us, and its sibling is at the wood's edge excitedly jumping around ready to join in. I then heard two things that sent chills down my spine. The first was mama bear angrily coming out of the woods. The second was one of my comrades yelling words I'll never forget:
“OH (fill-in-the-blank)! It's a (fill-in-the-blank) baby bear! EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!”
“Every man for himself”...the battle cry uttered prior to being trampled by your friends trying to escape. Consider the phrase a liability waiver for all involved. Almost in unison, 25 adults began screaming and frantically running away from the cub. The startled cub ran back to momma, who quickly herded her babies into the brush. It was at that point I realized few people are willing to be ripped apart by an angry animal...especially if they're not the slowest person in the group.
That's it for this week. While you're pondering my lesson in teamwork, I hope you'll join me in raising awareness of something that plagues our world. We need to have the citizens in developed, developing, and undeveloped nations join together and ban ear-buds. Why? Because one always falls out of my ear while I'm exercising, which means they suck and should go away.
-ckj
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