I Will Rip Your Face Off

It's really nice that in my "line of work" we have Jenny to help us laugh at the crap we go through. She makes me laugh and think, and generally gives me hope that I won't lose my mind. There are a few really great comics about the military floating around the Internets, and one of my favorites (aside from Jenny) is AFBlues. This strip hit me too close home. The Uniformed personnel part, not the fighting over Diet Coke thing.

Military personnel in uniform have priority from 1100-1300 at both the BX/PX and commissary.

The thought of the "priority" is that if you are working, you need to get in and out of the BX/PX or Commissary quickly. I have no problem with this policy in theory, but I also don't agree with it. If you have time to shop (for more than just a quick lunch or what not) then you have time to wait in line. Rarely do people enforce this rule for that fact. I have been subjected to it one time, and one time only. During Hurricane Ivan, Paul wasn't allowed to evacuate the city, because he was a student, and they all had to stay put. Since I was 900 months pregnant though, he was allowed to stay with me at the hospital, instead of his classroom with everyone else. We made a "quick" trip to the BX because we didn't have blankets, or pillows. (We were living in a hotel.) We tried to get an air mattress, but they were sold out. All the other pregnant people got them. As we were checking out, with our snacks, bottled water, and blankets the cashier refused to ring up our stuff. Why do you ask? Because there were 8,000 people behind us in uniform. And it was between the hours of 1100 and 1300. Now, these 8,000 people were in uniform, but they weren't working. No. The base was in the process of shutting down because of a HURRICANE! They had no work to get to. They needed to get home, or to get out of the town, but they weren't doing something mission critical. And yet, this woman told three officers to cut in front of my fat ass because she wasn't ALLOWED to ring up someone who wasn't in uniform during those times if people in uniform were waiting. Thankfully, these guys weren't stupid. I'm going to guess a couple of them have had wives who have been 900 months pregnant, and a Captain basically ordered her to do her job and get us out of there. The woman is lucky that that particular Captain (whom we didn't know) was behind me, because if there had been someone to cut in front of me, I think it could have gotten ugly. I spent the next 36 hours praying I would go into labor early, because that was the only way I was going to get a bed. We slept on the floor of an exam room in the OB clinic. Zeph waited 2 more weeks before she decided she wanted to join the world. I still say I showed great composure for NOT punching that cashier in the face.