Pearl Harbor Day

FDR said the day would forever live in infamy; the CO said it would be a day off.  Kind of.  Today the Non-Commissioned Officers (in the Marine Corps, that would be the Corporals and the Sergeants – E-4 and E-5) took over the battalion.  There was a sergeant serving as Battalion CO for the day.  He had to do all of the CO’s daily tasks.  Same applies for the various officer posts and Staff NCOs (E-6 through E-9).

RP2 Worth (My RP was promoted from Religious Program Specialist 3rd Class to 2nd Class a few weeks ago) served as the chaplain.  While he did not get the veil of confidentiality that I enjoy, he had some big plans for his day as Chaplain.

“Chaps, I’m just going to buy a big box of straws”

“Ummm, Ok.  Why?”

“When somebody comes up to me with a problem, I’ll just give them a straw and tell em to ‘suck it up’”.

This is why NCO day cannot be every day.  But he might be on to something.

What did I do with my day off?  I got sick.

So instead of going out and taking advantage of the time off, I did what I know best:  I sat on the couch watching trashy TV.   When MTV’s “True Life: I’m a Sugar Baby” seems like the best thing on, you know it’s going to be a very trashy morning. (Incidentally, a sugar baby is a person who has a sugar daddy or sugar mama; in this case, it included people who are desperately in need of a sugar daddy/mama).

I pulled myself together finally, and ran some errands.  Leora and I went to the farmer’s market where a little old Japanese lady walked up to me, and measured how tall she was in comparison.  She said something in Japanese.  She and Leora laughed a little bit.  The old Japanese lady than brought a friend over to show her how tall she was in comparison, or so I assume.  I’ve been living here for a full year, and I have only 10 words of Japanese to my credit.

Pearl Harbor Day 2012, I don’t think will live in infamy.  But it was certainly a welcome day off after a crazy week.