He Had A Motive....

Nothing really interesting happened today. Once I got off work I went straight to my bed for a nap. As I was slowly regaining consciousness......I realized I was chuckling. I absolutely LOVE waking myself up because I'm laughing. It's such a strange experience, well at least for me. I am going to start making a point to get out of bed to write down what it was exactly that made me laugh so hard in the middle of dead sleep. Anyway, it's easy to remember this because....well, it's just so funny, and it's true. (this will be a long post)

Okay, I'm in the military stationed in England. You can go to any Air Force base and meet somebody from Ohio, it's weird. Anyway there is a TDY, basically a trip away from base for a little bit, this particular one was going to Florida for the first half of the trip then to Vegas the second. I wasn't scheduled to go on this TDY, kind of a bumber because my friend Luke was and he was the only person I usually hung around with. So for like a month this other guy named Kurt, who was scheduled to go, did nothing but talk about going dancing, drinking, gambling, and going to Outback or Lonestar or whatever other steakhouse type place and describe everything he'd order to eat. He would fantasize about eating steak and ribs and stuff, it was slightly uncomfortable being around him during that time. Anyway, the TDY is creeping up, only a matter of days before they head off for Florida and Kurt is about to burst with excitement. Anyway, one night Kurt and I had to attach some "pods" for the tests they were going to do on the trip. Now these things are heavy, we have to use a thing called a "jammer" to get them on. A jammer is a hydraulic lift on wheels which was built for pods and weaponry. It's pretty loud too, we have to use earplugs and earmuffs while using it. One person to drive the jammer and lift/drop the stuff, the other guy fine tunes the tray placement and connects/disconnects the stuff. Well with double hearing protection, if you are driving the jammer it's safe to say the lack of movement and the constant muffled roaring of a jammer engine will lull you to zombie-land. Here we are loading a pod and as Kurt walks beside it, to make sure it doesn't fall off (not that he could do anything if it did), I thought to myself "Hmm, he's walking directly in front of the tire. He better be careful. Pfft, he's been doing this as long as I have, he'll be careful." On our last pod I notice he's walking directly in front of that tire again, same thought pops into my head. I've got a song in my head or something, it doesn't matter the important thing is I'm in zombie-land driving a potentialy dangerous vehicle (but only if it's done right) especially with the added weight of a pod on the front. I look to my left, with my hand on the top of the steering wheel because I'm a troo playa. I look into the distance and hit a bump. "Hmm.....this is the hangar entrance......uh...why did we hit a bump....HOW could we hit a bump...." I look ahead of me and here's Kurt rolling on the ground holding his ankle. Shocked, as the pieces of the puzzle start coming together and my trip to zombie-land is on it's return trip home....with the jammer still on, both of us still have double hearing protection on......I pull up next to him while he's writhing in pain and try to yell over the jammer "WHAT HAPPENED???? WHAT DID YOU DO????" Then the idea occured, turn off the jammer. Then I yell again, "WHAT HAPPENED????? WHAT DID YOU DO????" Then the thought occurred to me, take off our earmuffs. "WHAT HAPPENED???? WHAT DID YOU DO????". his reply, "CALL SOMEBODY!!!"......."We've arrived at Reality, please remember to take your carry on luggage with you as you depart, thank you for flying Zombie Air. It's 11:45 PM, strong winds have been keeping the temperature at a cold 48 degrees and YOU JUST RAN OVER YOUR FRIEND'S ANKLE!!!!"

*side note---okay, I tend to do really weird things and it's usually because I don't think things through correctly especially when I'm caught by surprise, and somehow I just end up getting into wierd situations and doing wierd things.*

I run into the hangar because there is a phone there, Just as I got to the phone I found out that it doesn't work. So I run back out to the jammer because DUH I have a vehicle to get me to the building to make an emergency phone call.....and the building is only a mile away so I start up the jammer again, only to shoot nasty diesel fumes into Kurts face, "SORRY!!" then I make a sharp right turn, the only thing is I had a slow jammer, running would be quicker.....Just before I got off the jammer to run I realized I saw a truck at another hangar to my left just as I ran over Kurt. So I make a sharp left turn. I make another pass infront of Kurt, yes he's still writhing in pain while I'm driving back and forth in front of him trying to "Get help." Before I get to the truck a hummer turns on it's lights in the distance and it scares the heck out of me and of course I start to pull over, "Hmm, they must be doing some exercise or something"......then I realize they are coming to help us, so I turn BACK around and drive up to Kurt.....and wait for the hummer to get to us. They do, and it's a good thing they did because only God knows what I would have done on my own. They call the ambulance and it's on the way. Finally the ambulance gets there and the paramedic was talking to Kurt and needed to take his blood pressure. The wind was too strong for her to hear anything through her stethoscope so she asked me to take off my jacket to shield the wind. "Yes ma'am!!"

*side note---At night we had to wear these thin plastic reflective belts.....so we don't get run over......the velcro on mine was coming off and of course I stapled it back on so I wouldn't get in trouble.....or get run over.*

I hold my reflective belt in one hand and just open up my jacket like I'm flashing them and I crawl closer. I hear this "ouch, ow....OUCH JOSH MY EYE!!" Yep, here I am holding my jacket open and I'm paying attention to how much pressure the lady is pumping into the blood pressure thingy, definitely not thinking about how strong the wind was....or the fact that it was making my reflective belt snap in the wind like a whip, with staples on the end, and of course it's snapping Kurt right in the eye multiple times. I just let go of my reflective belt and I hear everybody laughing behind me. It turns out a lot of people from the office heard about the ambulance on the radio and came to check out what was going on. It turns out Kurt had 4 broken bones in his foot, and he wasn't going on this TDY, and of course who else would they send to replace him? Yep, me. Not only do I break this guys foot, I go further and try to blind him, and further still by stealing his spot on the TDY he had been looking forward to for a month. It really is funny how things happened but I felt so bad. Worse because of me having to take his place and of course everybody giving me a hard time about it, joking of course....I ended up having SO much fun on the TDY though HA!

But God put me back in the states for a reason. Our jets were stopping at Wright Pat while everybody else (except about 5 people) went back to England. There was a family emergency and my supervisors hooked me up so I could go to OH too and see my family AND take some leave enroute, this was all taken care of in a matter of days before the return trip to Engand. God rocks, bigtime.