(note 2: MEPS = Military Entrance Processing Station, the processing center to make sure you meet the government's standards)
In order to avoid going to bed around 6:00pm on Tuesday to wake up at 2:00am Wednesday to get my lazy ass downtown to MEPS, Uncle Sam put me up in a hotel the night before. I thought to myself, "Hey, this might not be a bad gig, get to the hotel in the evening and kick it with a beer and a nice meal." Damn, I crack myself up.
The rules (for the uninitiated, I like bulleted lists almost as much as I like PowerPoint Presentations):
- Get there at 4:30pm. Why? So we can stand in the lobby until 5:00pm and wait on line.
- Don't drink. Ok, I get this one -- it was mostly a bunch of 17-18 year old kids waiting to ship off to basic the next day.
- Don't leave the grounds. I understand why that rule exists -- kids would run out, get all sorts of shitty drunk, get arrested, change their minds about going, etc. Not that there was anyway to go anyway -- the hotel was literally across the street from the airport. LAX is not exactly a hot club spot.
- Don't order any movies. Uncle Sam doesn't much care for kids ordering Superbad and/or porn on their dime.
Waiting on queue to check in, I was admittedly a little intimidated. It was a mix of "Holy shit, this is really happening," and "Holy shit, everyone here looks like the guys who beat the crap out of me all throughout K-12." There were a lot of overweight, overly-inked stevedores on line. Turns out that while they weren't so bright, they were quite nice.
Mostly, however, I was amused by the folks there. A large number of the guys were going into the Navy (as exemplified by the 'gifts' from their overzealous recruiters -- Navy Backpacks, Shirts, Sweats, etc.) and they looked like they had been jerking off to Charlie Sheen in Navy Seals ever since they figured out how their little penises worked.
I'm going to be taking care of these guys? Shit.
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