Chapter 8: Barracks + bad roommates = bad combination
1630. The best military time known to Marines. Granted, there really wasn't much to do in this crazy town. Now that I had my car in my possession, I was now responsible for the car payment. After my car payment was taken from my paycheck, my net pay was $197.65 every two weeks. Talk about poverty...I could barely afford the honeybun in the vending machine.
Chow Hall food just got to you after awhile. How much veal and Yakisoba could one person eat in his or her lifetime? Luckily, prior to joining the Marine Corps, I had a JC Penney credit card. You know what was cool about that? I could head on down to the "Small" and I use the credit card at Eckard Drug to buy food. Heavenly, non-chow hall, food. Who would have thought that a person could max out a credit card at Eckard Drug? Where there is a will, there is a way. It's amazing what I could buy there and if you returned the items without your credit card, they gave you back...wait for it, wait for it..CASH! This was before the cool systems stores have now. Just sucked that my "cash advance" was at 23% interest. I never claimed to be bright; you can quote me on that one!
I was upgraded to a better barracks room. When I first got the new room, I wanted to puke. The fridge was unplugged and was never cleaned out. There were foul smelling sardines in there along with a lot of melted butter and lettuce that was stuck to the plastic tray in the fridge. Of course, I moved into that room on Field Day, so I had to make sure that it was in its prime condition for inspection. Took me eight solid hours to clean this room. Whomever lived in this room before me is going to die. These thoughts ran through my head as I scrubbed the urine off the tile and yet again, cleaning up someone's pubes. Nasty men.
The following day after I scrubbed the room and put a woman's touch to it, I was blessed, I mean cursed, with new roommates. One was a witch (no, literally, she was a witch; she practiced Wicca in our room with knives and everything) and the other was a married Navy chick who loved snakes, pythons to be exact.
I grew tired of these roommates because the Wiccan scared the bejesus out of me and the other let her snakes out while I was sleeping. Imagine sleeping at night and feeling something crawling up your leg...now imagine you opened your eyes and it was a ball python crawling up your leg. Nightmares. Instant nightmares. I think that was the night I scared the living crap out of her by threatening her with her life. She never let that snake roam freely again.
My other roommate told me that I always ruined her seances. Me, I could care less. I am Catholic and could care less about Wicca. So the next day, I went to my Admin Officer and told him that my roommate had knives in the room longer than what the Base Order allowed, which was 3 inches. Needless to say, she was no longer my roommate and had to take her knives to the armory. Score! Diana - 2 Roommates - 0.
Then the new roommate showed up. She was a Squadron Call Girl. Why would I say something like that about a person? Because as soon as she answered the phone, she would dress like a whore and come back home with a man. Nothing like hearing a dirty whore while you are trying to sleep, or waking up in the middle of the night with strange men walking through your door looking for her because she forgot to lock the door on the way out. Instead of giving her an ass-whoopin', I asked to changed rooms when one was available. Heaven forbid I get into a fight and get into trouble. Could you imagine how much my pay check would have been then?
I really didn't have many hobbies. Didn't have computers or the Internet back then, so you had to be creative. I made some friends around the barracks. There is one thing that I have to admit. Men make great friends. There are two friends in particular that were my saving grace and without them, I would have killed myself from boredom. One was from Massachusetts and the other from Maine. I took a liking to Lobsterboy from Maine and my friend from Mass was just an amazing soul. My parents met both of them when they brought me my car and instantly fell in love with both of them. My parents gave me their seal of approval and even bought them dinner (they had NEVER bought any of my friends or boyfriends dinner, so this was a complete surprise to me).
We were a perfect trio of friends. Both of them were "stitch bitches" for their respective squadrons and I just added that extra punch needed to make a great circle of friends. Lobsterboy and me dated for a few months. He was fun to be around with and the accent just melted my heart (people from Kansas don't have accents). The one thing that I didn't care for about Lobsterboy was that he had a pretty bad drinking problem, which I think kind of killed it for us. I had never been around any who drank, so it was all new to me (I grew up in a dry house; neither of my parents ever drank). We remained great friends and ended the relationship on good terms and went back to being friends. I did almost knock him out one day. I was awakened with a phone call at 5 am by a certain someone's Staff Sergeant looking for him. When I asked why they were calling my room looking for him, he mentioned that this was the known address and number for him. I couldn't believe it. The person who left those sardines in that fridge was the man that I dated for three months. Un-freakin-believable. Needless to say, he owed me some Field Day time and he was a good sport about it.
My friend from Mass was still an amazing friend. I think I was more of his mother, because when he had a boo-boo, he came crying to me. One time after a 24 hour duty, Cpl Mass had a small dirt bike accident. I was passed out in my bed from being up all night that I woke up in the middle of the night because I couldn't feel my arm. I woke up to find him sleeping in my bed. I woke up, completely confused. My Navy roommate saw me freaking out and told me that he fell off his dirt bike and was waiting for me to wake up to "nurse" him back to good health. Nursing him meant him dropping his drawers and me taking gravel out of his cheeks and putting ointment onto it. The things we do for friends.
This wouldn't be the last time that I was there for him. Over the next few years, he relied on me for so many things, and the best part about that was that I enjoyed taking care of him. I haven' heard from Lobsterboy since leaving North Carolina, but I am lucky to say that 14 years later, my boy from Mass and I are still good friends.
Chow Hall food just got to you after awhile. How much veal and Yakisoba could one person eat in his or her lifetime? Luckily, prior to joining the Marine Corps, I had a JC Penney credit card. You know what was cool about that? I could head on down to the "Small" and I use the credit card at Eckard Drug to buy food. Heavenly, non-chow hall, food. Who would have thought that a person could max out a credit card at Eckard Drug? Where there is a will, there is a way. It's amazing what I could buy there and if you returned the items without your credit card, they gave you back...wait for it, wait for it..CASH! This was before the cool systems stores have now. Just sucked that my "cash advance" was at 23% interest. I never claimed to be bright; you can quote me on that one!
I was upgraded to a better barracks room. When I first got the new room, I wanted to puke. The fridge was unplugged and was never cleaned out. There were foul smelling sardines in there along with a lot of melted butter and lettuce that was stuck to the plastic tray in the fridge. Of course, I moved into that room on Field Day, so I had to make sure that it was in its prime condition for inspection. Took me eight solid hours to clean this room. Whomever lived in this room before me is going to die. These thoughts ran through my head as I scrubbed the urine off the tile and yet again, cleaning up someone's pubes. Nasty men.
The following day after I scrubbed the room and put a woman's touch to it, I was blessed, I mean cursed, with new roommates. One was a witch (no, literally, she was a witch; she practiced Wicca in our room with knives and everything) and the other was a married Navy chick who loved snakes, pythons to be exact.
I grew tired of these roommates because the Wiccan scared the bejesus out of me and the other let her snakes out while I was sleeping. Imagine sleeping at night and feeling something crawling up your leg...now imagine you opened your eyes and it was a ball python crawling up your leg. Nightmares. Instant nightmares. I think that was the night I scared the living crap out of her by threatening her with her life. She never let that snake roam freely again.
My other roommate told me that I always ruined her seances. Me, I could care less. I am Catholic and could care less about Wicca. So the next day, I went to my Admin Officer and told him that my roommate had knives in the room longer than what the Base Order allowed, which was 3 inches. Needless to say, she was no longer my roommate and had to take her knives to the armory. Score! Diana - 2 Roommates - 0.
Then the new roommate showed up. She was a Squadron Call Girl. Why would I say something like that about a person? Because as soon as she answered the phone, she would dress like a whore and come back home with a man. Nothing like hearing a dirty whore while you are trying to sleep, or waking up in the middle of the night with strange men walking through your door looking for her because she forgot to lock the door on the way out. Instead of giving her an ass-whoopin', I asked to changed rooms when one was available. Heaven forbid I get into a fight and get into trouble. Could you imagine how much my pay check would have been then?
I really didn't have many hobbies. Didn't have computers or the Internet back then, so you had to be creative. I made some friends around the barracks. There is one thing that I have to admit. Men make great friends. There are two friends in particular that were my saving grace and without them, I would have killed myself from boredom. One was from Massachusetts and the other from Maine. I took a liking to Lobsterboy from Maine and my friend from Mass was just an amazing soul. My parents met both of them when they brought me my car and instantly fell in love with both of them. My parents gave me their seal of approval and even bought them dinner (they had NEVER bought any of my friends or boyfriends dinner, so this was a complete surprise to me).
We were a perfect trio of friends. Both of them were "stitch bitches" for their respective squadrons and I just added that extra punch needed to make a great circle of friends. Lobsterboy and me dated for a few months. He was fun to be around with and the accent just melted my heart (people from Kansas don't have accents). The one thing that I didn't care for about Lobsterboy was that he had a pretty bad drinking problem, which I think kind of killed it for us. I had never been around any who drank, so it was all new to me (I grew up in a dry house; neither of my parents ever drank). We remained great friends and ended the relationship on good terms and went back to being friends. I did almost knock him out one day. I was awakened with a phone call at 5 am by a certain someone's Staff Sergeant looking for him. When I asked why they were calling my room looking for him, he mentioned that this was the known address and number for him. I couldn't believe it. The person who left those sardines in that fridge was the man that I dated for three months. Un-freakin-believable. Needless to say, he owed me some Field Day time and he was a good sport about it.
My friend from Mass was still an amazing friend. I think I was more of his mother, because when he had a boo-boo, he came crying to me. One time after a 24 hour duty, Cpl Mass had a small dirt bike accident. I was passed out in my bed from being up all night that I woke up in the middle of the night because I couldn't feel my arm. I woke up to find him sleeping in my bed. I woke up, completely confused. My Navy roommate saw me freaking out and told me that he fell off his dirt bike and was waiting for me to wake up to "nurse" him back to good health. Nursing him meant him dropping his drawers and me taking gravel out of his cheeks and putting ointment onto it. The things we do for friends.
This wouldn't be the last time that I was there for him. Over the next few years, he relied on me for so many things, and the best part about that was that I enjoyed taking care of him. I haven' heard from Lobsterboy since leaving North Carolina, but I am lucky to say that 14 years later, my boy from Mass and I are still good friends.
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