Well! This has been a long and trying day. Fun.... But long and trying.I'd expected to spend my usual night up in the comm room. I had only been there for a few minutes when Lt Baby Boy yelled up the stairs. "Rev! You up there? Come on down! You have to go see the investigator!"
Aw, really? Now what? I haven't done anything! Heck, I haven't even written a violation in almost a year! What the snap... grumble.... grumble....
Trot across the street and all the way up to the top to the investigators office. He tells me "I'm busy. Go wait downstairs and I'll see you in a minute." Aargh. Okay, fine. Back downstairs I go.
Some other officer I don't recognize waiting down there as well. Then a few minutes later here comes the Watcher. Dressed in his training clothes. He'd been teaching the PR-24 baton techniques. And he says he has to see the investigator too. And one more officer I don't know shows up and is told to wait with us.
A suspicion begins to form in my mind. Hmmm....
A few minutes after that Captain Crane comes up and says we have to go down to the Personnel office. So we trot down there. The lady down there tells us to go back to the conference room and come see her afterwards so we trot back down the hall again. The Captain says "No, you have to go down there first, then come back up here."
Right. Okay, I'm starting to get a little aggravated at this point. Back down the hall we go again. She shrugs and gives us a piece of paper to sign that says we have been promoted to Sergeant and if we accept the job, sign here. Boink!
Yeah, I signed it. My mind in a whirl. I hope I signed my name and not something like "Yippee!"
When we get back down to the conference room we all sit down and Captain Crane asks "Do you all know why you are in here?"
I said "To mess with our heads?" He laughed.
Congratulated us all and shook our hands. We learned that Drew had gotten promoted earlier in the day so now he has like three hours of seniority over us. The dawg!
He and Captain Rogaine gave us all a pep talk. Then the Major came in and talked some more about what he is going to expect from us in the future. Then the Warden and a retired Captain came in and talked some more, congratulating and filling us full of advice.
I honestly only remember bits and pieces of the conversations. I do remember them all remarking several times that I was sitting there grinning like the Cheshire Cat the whole time. I just kept looking at that shiny new gold badge and thinking "Holy snap! I did it! How did that happen?"
When they finally let us go it was well past the time to go down to the training building to get new shirts. All I had was a badge and chevrons, so they said just to wear them on my blue shirt for the night. As we were down in the assembly room and I was putting my new badge on the Major came by with his dry cleaning and asked me "What size shirt do you wear?" I told him and he pulled a shirt out of his bag and said "Here! You can wear one of mine for the night!"
So I spent my first night as a Sergeant wearing the Majors shirt and scared to death that I might spill something on it. I ate my dinner and drank coffee with my coat on zipped up all the way.
And since I didn't get a hat and it was going to rain, I insisted on wearing my ball cap for the night. Sergeants and above wear Stetson hats and COI's wear ball caps. It threw everyone off seeing me in that white shirt with the ball cap on. Heck, I was hoping it would start a new fashion trend...
I survived the night. But my mind was in a buzz the whole time. Things are going to be very different. It will be an adventure, for sure.
On the way home I gave Sgt Uncle T a ride home and he gave me a painting that Miz T (aka NoisyFrogPond) wanted me to have as a congratulations present. It's a very cool portrait of and Indian with his face painted holding a lance and it will look very cool in my office. And I have the perfect spot to hang it in too.
So thanks, Miz T! I love it and it will look awesome in the Rev's Escape Pod!
On that note, I need to go to bed and hopefully get my mind to slow down enough to sleep.
Thursday is going to dawn bright and early as National Lemon Cupcake Day, Bill Of Rights Day, Cat Herders Day (wouldn't want their job!), and the feast of St. Urbitius the Hermit.
Wow. What was I thinking? What were they thinking? Wow.
