mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day at MEPS, pt. 2 Gurgle. Pop. Fizz. The problem is, I can't tell where the noise is coming from. It is definitely somewhere within -- yes, I said withIN -- my body. And I have narrowed it down to two places. But which one, I can't really tell. Remember when I was in Chicago? And remember on that last day, upon waking, my back felt as though it was impersonating the Pope? Remember all of that? Good. Because, even though I can actually bend my back and look around on demand, it still hurts like a bastard. Every time I turn my head, pain shoots down my left shoulder blade. And the pain travels down my left arm. Then, a minute later, I feel burning in the muscles in my shoulder. I'm not one to go to the doctor all that often. In fact, over the past three years, I have only gone three times. And those were just so I could go for a yearly physical. Like to make sure everything's working okie-doke. But I have decided to call the doc tomorrow for an appointment. Come to think of it, this will be my very first non-physical doctor's appointment that I have ever placed for myself. Wow! Notable event, everyone! Take notes! The down side is that this is the same doc who has done my past physicals. The same doc who, year after year, I've told that I get pretty nasty back aches pretty regularly. As in, daily. And he says, year after year, "Hmm. We'll have to check that out!" But he never does. Which kinda pisses me off. But I kinda doubt there is really much he can do. He'll probably say something like, "Take Tylenol. Record power yoga and do it periodically." Great. $10 co-pay down the tubes. I have another culprit in the body-noise mystery: Sonic. Since I did very well at MEPS last week (info below), I decided I would take several days off of my diet and endulge on the things I've been craving. One of these things was a big, greasy burger from Sonic with all of the Sonic Sides: big, greasy onion rings; big, greasy tater tots; and a big, sugary Cherry Limeaid. I left work temporarily today at 12:30, when NBC went to golf coverage, and bought all of the above fixins'. I brought it back, put "Life As A House" in one of the many VCRs we have, and ate while I watched the movie. By the time I came home at 3:30, I felt as though I sat myself on the big highway in front of my place of work and proceeded to let a Mack truck plow straight through me. Every vein felt heavy. My muscles felt gloppy, which isn't even a word. But that is how they felt. And my stomach felt like it had jumped on the psycho-ex bandwagon. So, it looks like I will forever be eating salads and things. Which isn't bad. I've found that you can be a lot more creative with salads than a lot of other foods. I've made some killer salads in the past couple of months. I will add some to My Recipe Diary as soon as I perfect a few. But still... A burger every now and then would be nice without feeling like complete ass. I guess you can't have your proverbial cake and eat it, too. Back to MEPS: The alarm clock went off on Wednesday at 3:05am. My ever-so-kind roommate quietly turned it off, quietly walked to the bathroom, quietly closed the door, and quietly took a shower. All while I quietly dozed back to sleep. I woke up to the wake-up call at 3:45 to see my roommate quietly sitting in his bed reading. Why can't real-life roommates be like this? So, I take my shower, pack up all of my stuff, and head down to the lobby where people were getting filed into lines of five. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the only one who looked like they had just woken up. It was raining as we filed onto the shuttle. In fact, it rained all night. The guy on the news radio channel our driver had tuned into his radio said St. Louis lost power to a lot of customers overnight. To someone who believes in omens, this wasn't a good sign. Gladly, I don't believe in omens. Well, I do. But on that day, I was too tired to even think about that. When we were dropped off, we ran inside of the federal building where the MEPS was on the fifth floor of the federal building. The first person we had to meet was our branch's liason. Mine was a nice guy dressed in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Hence the reason I am joining the Air Force: nice and relaxed. We next were taken to this big waiting room while everyone got their blood pressure taken, and some of us were taken into a sound booth to get our hearing checked. We weren't supposed to look at each other while being administered the hearing test, but we ended up peeking at one another, cracking up. It was about 5:00am. Everything is funny at 5am while locked in a sound booth. After that, we got packed into a room with desks. The whole group of us. This cute, short, blonde girl came in and told us what all was going to be going in that day. She then put in a tape in the VCR and left. We had to watch five minutes of a military guy --who I can only assume either got in trouble with his superiors or picked the shortest straw -- define and explain what exactly is a homosexual and describing homosexual acts. I almost felt sorry for the guy. After the video finished, this BIG BLACK dude came in. And he sure seemed pissed. He was gonna learn us to fill out our paperwork, and he didn't seem none too happy about it. The thing about this guy was he liked to talk in his ghetto black talk. You know... If we had any questions about "somfin", we were to "axe" him, and he would "ansah to da baist of mah a-bill-a-tee." But if we did ask him something, he would get pissy and ask us if we were stupid. I guess this was the last time he would get to treat us like trash before we bacame men in uniform, at which time he would have to call us "sir." He wasn't in the military himself. Just a worker. So, we got our paperwork filled out, and we went to get our eyes checked. It took about 5-8 minutes for each person to get his eyes checked. Had there been a worker at all of the eye checking machines, we could have gotten everyone though within an hour. Nope. There was one guy checking eyes while all of the other people stood around and talked about "they cousin" getting sent to jail. So, I sat in line, waiting to get my eyes checked from about 6:30 or so until -- and I'm not lying -- 11:55am. I did do a few things while waiting in line. I went and got my blood drawn. I went to try and pee for the urine test. That didn't work, so I got a cup and drank about 5 cups of water. I went back to the eye check line and started talking to some ladies. I waited. I drank. I waited, and I drank again. At about 11:30, someone came in and said, "Who in here is Brown?" I looked around and saw that all of us in line were white folks, and I was a bit embarrassed for the person asking if one of us was brown. Then it hit me that Brown is my last name. And, boy, was I then ever embarrassed! "I'm Brown," I said. "Where the hell is your urine test?" "I can't go, Sir," I said. Which was true. I didn't have to go. But they put me in the bathroom anyway, my Buster McThunderstick stuck in a cup for about 10 minutes with more Big Black dudes looking over my shoulder making sure I wasn't faking the urine test. I stood there. And I stood there. Not even a measly drop. So, I went back to the eye exam, which finally happened. My eyesight is, in fact, past the legal limit for being in the military. They are letting me get a waiver, though, which will take a few months to obtain. After the incredulously long eye exam wait, I finally went to talk with a doctor. He asked all of the necessary questions. I answered truthfully on all of the ones I was supposed to. I lied on the others. And then, I was put in a room with about 12 other guys. We were all stripped down to our undies, and the doctors made us do about 20 little tests to ensure that we could actually shoot a gun and stomp on some Arabs' throats if the need arises. Then we had to drop our shorts, turn our heads, and cough, all while the doctors shoved their unusually cold fingers up our danglin' wangs. We also had to bend over and spread the ol' cheeks and smile. I passed all tests with flying colors. (In case you were wondering... I measured in at 19% body fat!!!) So, other than not being able to pee in the cup and failing my eye exam, it was a pretty good day. I have to go back this Wednesday and pee in the cup and get the paperwork filled out for the waiver for my bad eyesight. Thankfully, I don't have to go through all of the processing processes again. I can just walk in and pee. I also took the DLAB test, which tested my ability to learn a new language. I had never taken so hard a standardized test before in my life. I will write more about it later. Right now, it is 12:36, and I have to be at work in 4.5 hours. My best friend Marcus just told me he is going to a bar to watch the US play soccer at 2:30 in the morning. Sounds like fun. I wish I had some sort of life. But instead, I go to bed. It sucks growing up. So, I will leave you with the kind, wise words from Marcus, just as he was leaving for the bar: "Peace out, you ass-loving honkey!" (JP Note: I just realized gloppy is, indeed, a word. Who says you can't learn anything from me.) 11:07 p.m. - Sun., June 16, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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