Picture Perfect Shit

For any soldier under the rank of Sergeant First Class who arrives at Fort Polk on PCS orders(Permanent Change of Station; it is to be that soldier's duty station), there is a series of briefings called the School of Standards. As the name states, it is where we spend four days and different people, some civillians and some green suiters(soldiers), tell us what to expect of Fort Polk, and of course, what Fort Polk expects of us. I actually enjoyed it, despite how boring it was, because I did not have to work, there were some young soldiers there who actively participated with ridiculously funny and outlandish statements and questions, and I was released to do whatever I want by 3 pm. As standard with other army posts, we have to receive a briefing on suicide and the usual speech: the signs of suicide, how to help and receive help, and the plain "Don't do it." The person in charge of our suicide briefing was a charismatic, humorous chaplain. What everyone liked about him was how he approached the situation. He hated the standard, boring briefing as well as the slides that accompanied it so he came up with this brilliant observation. He noted that the primal behavioral instinct inside all of us, has a secret degree of sick happiness; as humans, we are proud of our shit. By shit, he does not mean our possessions, our accomplishments, or any such nonsense to which "shit" is related by connotation. He meant our shit, that which is excrement and waste of our bodies. His observation was that we feel at least slightly happier when we take a shit, and that the better and bigger it is, the happier we feel. Of course he told us that at Fort Polk we can receive help if we are depressed and to help out others if they are depressed or showing signs of suicide, but the premise of his brieifing was that committing suicide physically hurts, and instead to pitch a huge lincoln loaf before thinking about it. I will tell you right now, to try it. Fuck antidepressants and all the pills that go with it: Lexapro, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Prozac, and the MAOI's. Now if you are seriously going through depression, see a doctor about it, but if you are just having a hard time in life, drop a deuce. Now here is the relation of this theory, to me.

This past Monday, before we left for the field, my cousin Luigi came to my room, dying of boredom. Luigi has this obsession with three way calling; it is probably one of his pasttimes and often tries to get his girlfriend to have phone sex with him while he leaves me a voicemail. Of course she always refuses, because despite her aggressive and sassy behavior accompanied by her vicious diction, she does not have the intestinal fortitude to pull a little prank(she tries to be a bitch, yet cannot pull a prank; she tries to be a bitch to me, just to get me frustrated and riled up, but it just makes me like her as a person more). Of course intestinal fortitude is for the airborne, and I guess she just has my cousin wear those pants. She is probably reading this and saying, "Fuck you bitch," but all I have to say, is do not be jealous you are not airborne. Well back to the subject, my cousin thinks it would be hilarious to prank call his girlfriend's older sister, whom he still thinks I have a great shot at, but I still disagree. However, to inflate my ego, I will show you what Luigi's girlfriend and her older sister wrote to me.

Luigi's Girlfriend:
"Hahah see I told you! At least there's another female out there who will back me up and be honest for once. You and Tucker Max are proof that guys can be jackasses and still get laid...a lot. My sister does think you're hot (yeah, go ahead, let that ego inflate, I won't tell anybody) but there's that 4 year age difference and 1,000 mile separation that may put a kink in Luigi's matchmaking."

That simple statement sent some embarrassment to her older sister who then sent me this:

"I'm glad my sister decided to EXPOSE MY FEELINGS on facebook!!!"

Obviously I let my ego inflate. Why you ask? It is because not only is this older sister five years older than me, but also because she is smoking attractive. As Luigi always states, "she is like a fucking barbie." Great body, attractive face, and vibrant blond hair makes for a fiery hot girl.
So we try to prank call her, but she does not answer, multiple times(I think Luigi's girlfriend told her not to answer, damn you). Pissed off because she did not answer when two american airborne soldiers, I calmed Luigi down with another proposition, we should prank call this girl from my platoon. I figured it would be fun considering she was high on painkillers. Well of course, I thought it would be funny to fuck with her head and echo everything Luigi said; this made her absolutely trip balls. After awhile, she realized it was not the guy she thought she was talking to, but rather her fellow platoon member and his cousin playing a childish prank. We decided to go to her room and see her blushed face of embarrassment and bully her about it to kill some time. We hang out in her room for a bit shooting the shit, when I made a wonderful realization. Her roommate, whom is in my squad, is not in there, she would not return because she was out with her adulterous idiot of a boyfriend, her laptop was left out, and I had my camera in my pocket. In my camera, there is a picture of grotesque beauty. Months ago, I went through a weekend feeling too lazy to go out and eat, or to even order a pizza, so I ate some MREs(Meals Ready to Eat). Each MRE comes with the usual spoon, alcohol wipes, tissue, matches, coffee or tea packet, salt, seasoning, but what is most important is the cinnamon gum. The gum tastes like cinnamon for all but two minutes and seems to disintegrate in your mouth, but it is for good purpose; you are meant to eat the gum. The gum is a small dose of laxative meant to keep your colon from backing up and beefing up from the lack of dietary fiber. In fact, Al Franken made a joke to the troops in Iraq that he had enjoyed his fifth MRE and "none of them had an exit strategy." Needless to say, you know what happens next. Over the course of 40 hours I ate three MREs minus the gum, each containing 2200 calories, totaling 6600 calories with little to no fiber. When it came time to drop that shit, it was bad. I was clutching the toilet because it felt as if I was going to pass out from popping a vein in my forehead. After three straight minutes of holding my breath and pushing out probably two pounds of condensed mass, I had to take a look. It was so large and packed that it circled around my whole toilet; it was beautiful. I immediately remembered what the chaplain had told us, and I still remember what I was feeling when I saw my turd, total joy and complete pride. Luckily for me, for some reason I cannot remember, my camera was sitting on my humidifier in my bathroom. A Kodak moment for sure. Do no fret, in this moment of euphoria, I still remembered to wipe my ass and wash my hands.

So there I was, standing in front of my squad member's computer, SD memory card in hand, with the following idea: I was to save my prized picture of an enourmous turd as the desktop background on her computer. I minimized the media player that was open on her desktop, loaded my SD card, and saved the picture on her desktop. I then took out my SD card and reopened the media player as to make the prank even better seeing as how she would someday close all windows on her computer and suddenly see a heaping turd in front of her face. It has been almost a week and still no one knows if she knows what is on her computer.
You are probably wondering, "How magnificent could this shit be? I think I want to see it for myself." Well I have lost the picture and am extremely sad about it. To compensate though, I will make a video interview of everyone who has seen the picture to testify by their own opinion, of my beautiful log. Stay tuned for that.



Have an airborne day,
565 Airborne, out.