A Few Degrees Difference

So, I just got back from vacation to the States.  While it was fantastic to see everyone, I also sorta dreaded it because I wore myself out, driving all over creation to visit.  Still, when you live way far away, in a land where things explode from time to time, you appreciate those who make the effort to keep in touch; it's very easy for most people to abide by "out of sight, out of mind." I managed to put 500 miles or so on a rental car in the 12 days I was in SC driving from Charleston to Myrtle Beach to Hartsville to Columbia and back to Charleston. 

Since I like to be adventurous, but an SC trip is by no means an adventure, I figured I'd liven things up while I was driving around.  Thus it was that I picked up a hitchhiker as I was leaving Charleston for Myrtle Beach.  Nothing like the threat of being murdered to keep you on your toes and make you feel alive.  Besides, I figure the 'psychopath' part of hitchhiking is split about 50/50 between driver and hitchhiker.  Six years ago, when I was driving from Jacksonville to Lafayette, LA, I actually had a hitchhiker ask me to let him out early because I creeped him out, I figured. Or he might have seen my Desert Eagle tucked under my thigh.  Either way, he asked out 200 miles before his destination. Yeah, that's talent right there folks.

As for this guy, he was a big fella.  The car was a small Hyundai Elantra.  He took his sweet time getting to the car, which is not in keeping with the usual hitchhiker etiquette of at least feigning a jog to get up to the car that's pulled over for you.  I expected him to smell like a deer, which he did, but not unbearably so.  We got to talking.

I don't waste my time asking names because it's not as if I'll ever run across these people again.  I just ask questions and wait for crazy stories. For the sake of ease, we'll call this guy Bizarro White Trash Ajax.  Okay, maybe just Bizarro.

Bizarro was, like me, 32 years old.  He called himself, like me, an adventurer.  He claimed, unlike me, to have a 170 IQ (I happen to think that IQ tests are insufficient to effectively judge my historical brilliance).  He said he had a BA and MA in English and that he was writing a book on his travels.  He, on his own, said "You don't judge people by their words, but by their actions," something I've thought about obsessively these past few years. I was starting to wonder if this is what it would be like if you looked at your reflection in one of those distorted funhouse mirrors and it talked back to you.

Then, he went off the rails.  Now, while I'm "unusual", I'm not crazy, so to speak.  Bizarro clearly was.  Some people are crazy because they make no sense; others are crazy because they can't figure out how to live life and get in disastrous situations routinely.  I feel that if you're a spectacularly bad judge of character and make horrific decisions, that qualifies you for crazy.  My crazy label is harsh, but it is what it is.

Bizarro started telling me how he'd been hitchhiking for two and a half years but that he was going to finish up to get back to Indiana so he could get custody of his daughter.  Uh huh.  Right.  Because judges routinely grant custody to hobos...  Bizarro had thought of that though and he was putting all his eggs in the "my ex is a crazy disaster" basket.  They'd split up when he'd walked in on her having sex with another man in their marital bed.  That man was Bizarro's father.  Bizarro said, "That little skinny son of a bitch is lucky he was fast and got out that window or I'd have killed his skinny ass."

When someone says "That little skinny son of a bitch is lucky he was fast and got out that window or I'd have killed his skinny ass" about his father, who had sex with his wife, you don't need to gather more information.  You can make the determination right there.  Bizarro was crazy.

I know lots of crazy people though (some of my closest friends), so I just let him get it out.

Bizarro talked about how the wife tried to fix things with him but he wouldn't touch her after that, of course.  A month after their divorce had gone through, she'd married his dad.  This all happened in some small town in Indiana.  I have to think that place must be crawling with Talk Show recruiters.  Too bad for Bizarro that Jerry Springer isn't on air anymore.

Anyway, after the divorce, it turned out the wife was a bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic, so Bizarro was pretty sure that, along with how @#$@ed up it was she married his daddy, should convince the judge that a disabled hobo (he claimed had some spinal injury and was on disability, though that didn't keep him from sleeping on the side of highways) should get custody of his seven year old daughter, though he admitted the judge might not take too kindly to the fact that Bizarro had been hitchhiking and hadn't attempted to talk to his daughter in two and a half years.

I bought Bizarro a burger and dropped him off on the outskirts of Myrtle Beach.  I rolled all the windows down to get rid of the funk.  As I drove on to my destination, I was very pleased and felt fortunate that I had not been hit in the head with a hammer, gained 70lbs, knocked up an insane woman at 25 years old, and been born to a trailer park life in Indiana, because, other than that, Bizarro and I were clearly the same person.

Marching Right Along Part 1

On the taxi ride back from the resort to the airport, my Mexican cabbie, Servicio, wanted to get chatty.  I'm not sure if it's because a) he was just naturally friendly, b) found silence awkward and thus terrifying or c) figured it might beef up the tip.  Probably all three.  As I was pretty worn out with mankind at that point, I'd have paid more for silence, but I played along.

Somehow, we got to the point where I told him I vivo-ed en Afghanistan.  Considering my Espanol is embryonic, I couldn't think of much to say.  I figured I'd tell him that the people there were sorta moreno pero con ojos verdes o azules.  He then clarified they were not brown like him.  Then, he asked if they were Catholic.

I often mock/embrace American centered-ness.  "America!", I'll randomly scream. 

That being said, I was actually shocked that the Mexican cabbie didn't know anything, whatsoever, about the country los Estados Unidos has been at war in for the past decade, particularly with his shuttling around American tourists.  I get that the American tourists that go to Cancun aren't watching MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, but still.

"No," I explained, "they are not."

Then I said "Ellos son Muslim."

Nothing.

"Islam."

He said, "Israel?"

"Muhammed?" I threw out there.

My high school Spanish class did not prepare me to teach Islamic theology to Mayan cabbies.

"No. No Jesus.  No Maria.  Solamente uno Dio.  El nombre de el dio de Islam es 'Allah.'"

That fairly blew his mind and I'm pretty sure he assumed that I was getting it all wrong because I don't speak Spanish, because how in the mundo bueno verde can there be no Maria o Jesus? 

He changed the subject to the women there.  He asked if they were all covered.  That made me think he'd definitely heard of Afghanistan but that he simply couldn't accept that they really didn't believe in Roman Catholicism.

He was still pretty baffled when we got to the airport, but by that point so was I. 

Random Thoughts on Travel-Not PC

1.  Look.  Seriously.  Don't tell me to turn off my iPod because you're afraid it will shut off the multi-million dollar plane's electronics and send us into a nosedive of death.  If my (basically) hard drive with headphones jammed in it that has no broadcast ability is enough to kill us all, then maybe the @$%!ing plane shouldn't have cleared whatever inspections it had to.  The FAA is worthless.  That's what I say.

2.  I love that I have about 200 movies on hand during a flight.  Really, I do.  I love that with the touch of a screen, I can access that.  What I don't love is that when I finally somehow manage to pass out in my tiny little chair and my head bangs forward (which I don't notice because I'm delirious from exhaustion) that I somehow hit the screen and have a flight attendant asking me what I needed because I hit the call button.  There needs to be a 6'2" variable turn off on the touch screen.  That's all I'm saying.

3.  Yes. I have gargantuan feet.  I appreciate that the chairs are now supersized for fat ass Americans.  That's nice.  I was in a row with two big burly lumberjack dudes.  Somehow, our torsos fit in the row.  However, our huge legs/feet did not and I spent most of the flight accidentally tripping any and everyone who walked near me, usually while I was simultaneously (accidentally) headbutting the touch screen and calling a stewardess.

4.  What in the hell is with porno mags in the Atlanta airport?  "Welcome to America! We objectify Women!"  "America! Tits! And Spread Vagina!"  "America! (Attention) Whores!"  Seriously?  I've just gotten off a 16 hour flight and transferred to another flight.  It's not like I just have to see a birth canal or five.  And, hey, I get that not all travelers are transfers, but what the hell is wrong with the guy who showed up at the airport just to buy a porn mag before he got on a flight.  I just can't imagine any scenario where that's a legitimate purchase.  

Brother Dearest

I have an older brother. Sorta.  He's my half-brother.  We consider ourselves full-on brothers.  We don't look much alike.  Anyway, as I tell people, "Long story short: Our dad boned his mom first."

Being eight years older, as a little boy, Evan was a god to me.  He lived with his mother so he'd come to visit one weekend a month and for half a summer and he'd have a little brat aggravating the hell out of him.

Anything Evan did was by far the coolest thing on the planet.  Anything Evan said was by far the smartest or funniest thing anyone said in the history of ever.

When I was six, Pop went on sabbatical to England to finish writing his book on dialectic (don't ask).  So, I went to first grade in England.  Halfway through the year, Evan, then a freshman in high school, came to live with us and did the 2nd half of the year there.  I was in heaven.

Mom recalls the house literally shaking from me running around hassling Evan and us thumping and bumping. Inevitably, being so much younger and smaller, I'd get hurt, or pretend to get hurt and would run crying to her, trying to get him in trouble.  She also recalls the time we were all ready to go somewhere and then Pop realized we were about 15 minutes early so we'd wait and I immediately turned to Evan and said "Great! Wanna fight?!"

Things I adored as a kid:

1. Evan

2. Sugar

3. Toys

4. Gammie

...

67. Mom and Pop.

Anyway, after that half year, we didn't live with each other again, until I was 12.

Evan was 20 then.  He had been off at college.  He dropped out.  He grew his hair long.  He got earrings. He went to a guitar school.  He bought a motorcycle.  He had a girlfriend with really big boobs.  All of that, to a 12 year old, more firmly entrenched Evan as the biggest badass of all time.

(Now, as a 31 year old, while I still kinda think his meltdown was awesome, I find it to be pretty run of the mill)

I was in middle school.  I lived with my brother, the badass.  He had come to live with Pop and me and had entered the local college to get his grades going again so he could transfer back to his original school.  He had a wall of CDs.  In the early 90s, tapes were still dominant, so CDs showed how debonair Evan was.  I was pretty sure he had even actually had sex before.  Thus, more than ever, Evan remained my favoritest person.

Pop was a professor at a military college.  We lived on the campus.  Pop was, and remains to this day, not one to waste a dollar.  If I needed a haircut, he gave me three dollars and sent me to the barbers the cadets went to.

The running joke was this:  A cadet went in to the barbershop and asked Ramey (barber who'd been there for at least forever) for a haircut.  The cadet said, "I want it an inch longer on the right side than on the left.  On the left though, I want you to put three tiers into it and, up top, I want a lightning bolt shaved in."  Ramey looked at the cadet as though he were crazy.  "Cadet," he said, "you know I can't do anything like that."  The cadet replied, "Yes, you can. You did it to me two weeks ago."

That's my way of telling you that I hated getting haircuts. Yay. Great.  I looked like a prisoner/refugee every time I got one.  Middle schoolers are known to be kind and understanding of the misfortunes of others.

I had Evan though.  Evan would save me.

Evan convinced me that there was this awesome new haircut that all the college guys were getting.  I'd be the coolest kid in 7th grade because I'd have a sweet college guy haircut. 

As it was 1992, he was talking about the Mushroom haircut.

(I cringe now)

Best of all, Evan would do it for me so a) it was guaranteed to be perfect and b) I could pocket THREE WHOLE DOLLARS! So what that Evan had never cut hair before?  That didn't faze me in the least.  I hadn't seen him try, but I was fairly certain he could walk on water.

We went in the bathroom.  He wet my hair down and started cutting.  I heard "hmmmm" a lot.  Then I heard "uh oh."  I may have heard an "oops."

I was a trifle concerned.  Evan was super, but then so are brain surgeons and if you ever hear "hmmmmm", "uh oh", and "ooops" from one of them you get worried too.

"Okay, Ajax.  I admit. I didn't get it quite right.  It's a little higher up than the college guys have," my idol calmly explained, "but, it's okay, because none of the other seventh graders will know because none of them will have one."

People hear what they want to hear. That's why I believed him.  He made sure to show me how it looked while my hair was still wet.  He was right.  I didn't know how to tell he'd messed up because I'd never seen a haircut like it before.  From what I could tell I was okay. Also, my badass brother assured me it was okay.

The only problem was that, the next morning when I got dropped off at school, he wasn't there to explain to the other kids (not just 7th graders...pretty much anyone who saw me), how I had a badass college guy haircut (nearly).  They took one look at me and...

...that's the story of how I came to be called "[Penis] Head" for the rest of 7th grade and, therefore, how my brother was no longer my hero.

F.Y.M.

In the brilliant, if admittedly low-budget/low-brow, 1994 film Fear of a Black Hat, writer/director/actor Rusty Cundieff, portraying rapper "Ice Cold", puts forth a concept that I find quite pertinent in a frustrating environment. I shall let him explain (NSFW):

As I've mentioned previously, out here, we have a set amount of b.s. we can handle.  When our Patience Wells fill up, they erupt into B.S. Volcanoes.  The problem is not that this happens.  It happens to all of us so we learn to deal with it.

The problem is that there are people out here who thrive on antagonism and purposely try to get people to go Vesuvial. 

I am currently there, being 8 days from vacation.  I have hit my B.S. Volcano.  I am also dealing with a person who is pushing me well into FYM territory.  I'm being pushed so far, in fact, that I might even be at Jules on "Brain Detail": (Super-Duper NSFW)

Unfortunately, I cannot explain myself thusly. 

I have long made note that when people are depressed or in mental pain they will often purposely self-destruct.  They may not be able to control feeling good.  They may not be able to control that they feel bad, but they can control how they feel bad.  Just to be able to direct themselves, even in a bad way is better than helplessness, uncontrolled misery, or despair.  See also, people who cut themselves.

As I've come here though that has come to light in another way.  We have very strange people who work out in Afghanistan. Yes, I know that I am saying this.  There are people that are stranger than me.  Think about that.

Anyway, some of these strange people, because of their quirks/eccentricities/flat-out-behavioral-disorders are unpopular.  It's not a situation where everyone goes "let's pick on that person" like in grade school, just that the screwed up people can tell no one likes them.  What some of them do, when they see that they can't get people to like them, is that they decide to go the route of deciding how people will dislike them by being raging jerks, stirring controversy, being antagonistic, and harassing and just being wildly unpleasant in general.

The issue is you can get away from people like that in a normal environment. Here, you can't escape. Because you can't escape and you can't make them leave, these people get emboldened, particularly if they are in positions of importance.  They press and press and press and take glee in harassing, filling up their need for acceptance with perverse feelings of power instead.

The problem is, they become myopic and lose sight of the big picture, that, ultimately, while they can get away with such poor behavior for a much longer period of time than in a normal environment, eventually, they will be pulled back to reality and spanked.

The people currently driving me bonkers forgot that they are not, in fact, tyrants, and that the laws of the United States concerning hostile work environment and personal litigation still apply.  It's great that they're in positions of authority over here; that doesn't exempt them from the time-honored maxim of "Don't @$#! with a lawyer."

F.Y.M.

Gospel?

My job has the same annoying bureaucratic crap that anyone's job has.  Just my job does it in a "war zone". That makes it all the more frustrating and absurd.  For instance, because the military is working on winning hearts and minds, my company feels we should too.  We are constantly exhorted by higher headquarters to submit "Good News Stories!™"

The problem is...this job isn't exciting.  I don't mean just mine.  I mean pretty much anyone's job in any department over here. I do contractual compliance work.  That's definitely boring.  But what the hell is a food service worker going to do that's noteworthy? Nothing.  And that's fine.  So long as he slops food on my plate when I ask for it, he's doing his job.  Good.  Great.  Not sexy.

Pretty much every day is the same as the day before and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the...etc.

Still, they want the "Good News Stories!™" so that some boss here can show it to some boss there and get promotions and/or sexual favors (probably just promotions, but you never can be sure with the way they beg for these things).

We try to think of things to send them, but, as I said, it's tough when everything here is routine.

How do you make Good News out of the day to day monotonous activities here?

For example:

Cleaning Crews 

While I love the smell of napalm in the morning, this smell is terrible.

Vehicle Maintenance

Afghan children's heads are a bitch to get out of a wheel well...trust me.

Project Management

Nothing funny to say; I've heard conversations like this... and been in those meetings.

After being told for the umpteenth time that our stories weren't "exciting enough" some of our guys got upset.  Finally they came up with the only thing that could surely count as being exciting out here.

 GOOD NEWS STORY: Repelling an Invasion of a Monster Alien from Outer Space (Singlehandedly)

"Kabul, Afghanistan- Joe the Plumber was enjoying one of his OSHA-mandated smoke breaks when, lo and behold, Lotharix the Destroyer alit from his interstellar craft and demanded the blood of babies and a lock of Martha Stewart's hair or else he'd subjugate the entire planet.  Fortunately for all of mankind, Joe happened to be carrying Zolgir, Smiter of Injustice, and so he slew our prospective overlord before he went back to inspecting toilets."

For some reason, management was not thankful for their salvation.  They didn't respond.   

Patience Well/ B.S. Volcano

The thing that makes deployment so difficult, aside from the possible explosive exploding of course, is the complete and utter inability to escape.  Obvious, I know, but I suspect that people don't quite fathom how painful that is.

For normal people, you have a frustration limit.  Through the course of the workday or workweek, various things rankle, but you get to go home for the night and weekend and your frustration level has  chance to come back down to bearable levels.

Here in Afghanistan though, it's 12 hours a day and seven days a week, but even then, when you're done with your 12 hour shift, you're still stuck seeing the guy who, without fail, quotes the same joke from a Will Farrell movie every. time. he. sees. you. ("I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal.  People know me. I'm very important.  I have many leatherbound books...")

If you can't see how that gets old, fast, imagine the coworker who talks too much at meetings (aka "The Good Idea Fairy"; aka "Mr. Silence Terrifies Me") standing in your hallway when you go to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Even if he doesn't say a word, you don't want him there.  In your house, you can shoot him; out here, you can only fantasize about it.

People who work out here have pretty high patience levels.  They have to.  But, and this is a point my mother fails to understand, patience is finite.  Also, people's patience wells aren't built nice and evenly.

For example:

It's not really a patience well; it's a B.S. Volcano

So, as long as the rate of B.S. doesn't exceed the rate you can handle it you don't have problems.  But, if the B.S. comes too fast, you start filling up and it fills faster and faster.  Now, this is crucial to understand,  B.S. is not like water.  The more water in a well, the faster the water flows out because of pressure from the mass of water on top.  B.S., however, is B.S. and, being dense, actually drains slower with more pressing down on it and it can even clog up.  So, the more B.S., the slower it goes away.  Think of ketchup if you don't want to think of poop.

Back in the States, going "postal" is rare, fortunately.  Here though, people will fill their patience wells and explode their B.S. volcanoes.  However, since it happens to all of us, we've learned to a) accept when others go off on us and b) explode in relatively reasonable ways (screaming...not punching...most of the time).

So.

 1st Day Back from Vacation

Three weeks in

 

2 Months In

 

Week Before Vacation

Later That Same Day

 

That's the normal time-line.  We all pray we don't get more B.S. sooner than we can handle because hitting the B.S. Volcano Zone is when people quit or get fired.  Coworkers will give you a week.  They can't handle a month.  Neither can you.

I'm 2 weeks out.  My eye is twitching and I've gotten very quiet.

I can assure you, Sartre was right.  

"Hell is other people."