Nearly Stepped In It!!!

For a day that showed such promise in the beginning, it sure went downhill quickly. And I almost stepped off into the pile without even thinking.

Had a visit from a couple of angels this morning. Not many lucky guys get visits from angels dressed in camo BDU's. But I'm just awesomely lucky that way. Miz Archer and Miz Twang were out for E-squad training and came by the house on their lunch break. Yippee!

I gotta tell ya. Hugs from pretty girls are the best way to get awake and get your blood moving.

Mmmmm...... (happy smile)

While she was here Miz Twang asked "Are you calling out today?"

When I asked why she said "I heard they might pull Sgt Puddle and leave you up there by yourself."

Oh snap. Well, it's a Monday. No transfers. I should be able to do it. I hope anyway. Oh snap.

That thought lingered in my head while I showered and got dressed and packed my lunch and got ready for work. And all the way to work listening to Elvis Costello on the CD player I felt like a paratrooper standing in the door of a C130 looking down at the beach at Anzio or some place like that waiting for the green light so I could jump.

And all the while I'm thinking "Oooooooooohhhhhh snap."

When I got there the desk was a mess. Panda had papers strewn everywhere and his breakdown board looked like ants had crawled all over it with ink on their feet. The breakdown board was the base for what we started all of our house count numbers from. They had apparently moved people all over the camp today and he had taken notes all over the thing, totaling and re-totaling.

He started to get up and leave and I said "I hope you are printing me a new breakdown sheet!"

He's supposed to do that before he leaves.

When he went to make a new sheet was when everything went to snit. Got down to the bottom and he was off by one. Definitely no good. Luckily for me Sgt Puddle showed up and between the two of them they managed to find his mistake.

Almost an hour later.

I did most of my prep work for the 4:30 count on the back panel by the printer but couldn't even start checking to see if the numbers were right until he gave me the base totals to start from. When he finally said "Here, I think it's right." and bailed it was 4:00 and I had to hit the ground running.

I don't think I have ever in my whole ever loving blue eyed natural life written down so many numbers and added them up so fast. And the whole time my fingers are rattling against the keys of the calculator the tightly wrapped and aggravated voice of Leonard "Bones" McCoy was echoing in my head: "Dammit Jim!! I'm a doctor, not an accountant!"

Sgt Puddle told the Captain that our count might be bad. And why. And bless his little black heart he decided to stay down at the front desk rather than come up in the control center to be closer to the action. I didn't need an upset Captain leaning over my shoulder right then.

When my pencil finally fell back to the desk top it was 4:28. Two minutes to count. I thought it was right. I suspected it was right. I hoped it was right. But it was much too late to go over it again. All I could do was hold on to the ripcord of my emergency chute and hope it worked.

One hand was answering the phone and the other one was writing down the numbers as they came in. In the meantime I chewed my fingernails all the way up to elbow and gave birth to about twenty litters of kittens.

When count finally cleared you could have knocked me over with a feather. I seriously thought about just disappearing under the desk for a long nap or to play with all of those imaginary kittens for awhile.

Instead I went outside for a smoke. What we really need is an emergency bottle of whiskey at the front desk for things just like that. One stiff belt would have done wonderful things for the state of my nerves right about then.

Maybe I should put in a work order. Think they'll go for it?

Nah. Me neither.

On Tuesday I will be somewhere besides the control center.

Feeling pretty good about that.

It will be Crush A Can Day, Ancestor Appreciation Day, the Peregean Spring Tides, and World Tourism Day.

I'm feeling better..... Think I'll go for a walk.....