Wherein I Relate An Amusing Anecdote

(this was much funnier in the dark, in person, with hand gestures)

This morning we had rolling blackouts cross Texas to protect the State-wide electric grid when about 50 power plants had various problems. Our 15-minute (nominal) blackout at the house lasted for about two hours. I was working away at work, and the lights went out, seconds before my Darling Wife sent me a TXT MSG that power was on at home. As I was cleaning my work area by flashlight, I related the following stories to NP.

My Darling Wife called me as I was stopped at a traffic light on the way to work, and told me the power was still off (T+1hour from blackout). I told her to call the power company, I was driving, and I hung up just as the light was going green. I was thinking about this situation at 60 miles per hour when the SUV in front of me braked pretty hard, down to 45-ish MPH. I canceled autopilot and realized we were about a half-mile into a construction zone. This zone is after a long up-hill stretch and lifting off the accelerator pedal is enough to get most cars to 45MPH between the warning sign and the construction zone sign. This always happens. But today, we were panic-braking to 45MPH and I wondered why in an offhand way, until I looked right and saw a Police patrol car in a driveway. As if. If he wanted to, that COP had a dozen easy tickets, but it was obviously not his errand just then. No harm no foul.

It reminded me of boot camp when I joined the Navy. A bit of background information is in order.

In each barracks buildings at boot camp, there were four divisions of eighty-eight men. Each division had its own long room where the men would sleep, study, and tend to uniforms. There were twenty-odd smaller-than-twin-sized gray bunk beds on each side of a wide central aisle. These beds were about 50 years old and made of tubular steel. The top bunk had side bars to keep a man from rolling onto the hard deck below. There was a door at each end of the room. One of the eighty-eight men every two hours took up a watch position at each door, to stand there for two hours in case something happened, which it basically never did but it was good training. The (sadly empty) rifle rack was by the back door. Through the front door every morning would enter the Division Commander, a non-commissioned officer (usually a Petty Officer 2nd Class), and the Forward Watch would greet him quietly: "Good morning, Petty Officer" and report that all was well. Then the watch would throw a few dozen circuit breakers in a panel on the wall, to switch on the overhead lights. Our days began at ohgawdthirty when it was still dark outside. We would be awakened by the CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! of the circuit breakers, and the lights coming on. Then we would turn out of our racks and stand at the feet of our bed to be counted/inspected.

Failure to stand up for inspection would be the start of a very unpleasant morning.

One morning, I awoke in my too-narrow-to-roll-over bed to the sound of the circuit breakers being thrown. The lights came on. I lay in bed. I continued to lay in bed. I lay in bed some more. As I lay there for what felt like minutes but probably was seconds, I realized that all around me was silence. There should have been the noise of eighty men getting out of bed and scratching their *ahem* and standing for inspection, but it was quiet. I leaned up and looked around, and realized that *nobody* had gotten out of his rack. We all sat around looking at each other as this breach of protocol crept across our collective awareness, and began to wonder . . .

. . . and then the Division Commander started to come in at the front door. The watch bellowed "GOOD MORNING PETTY OFFICER!!!" and then in what felt like a half-second there were suddenly eighty-odd men out of bed and standing at attention all the way down both sides of the aisle. WHOOSH! just like that. I think I actually went under the bar on the side of my bed.

I forget if we got into trouble for that, but I don't think so.

All of that, in a flash, came back to me when I saw that COP car.