The Midnight Hour

Well, Camp Fallujah is still here. We haven’t moved or anything…just holding down the fort. I’ll admit I haven’t had a whole lot to say the past week. I suppose I’ve been keeping myself busy at work, and I’ve also been working with issues that have to be dealt with before we leave, like cleaning my room for the next occupant.

I almost choked myself out with Lysol cleaning the walls of my room two days ago. That’s right, the walls. Dust and dirt forms a tangible film on everything, including the walls, and I wouldn’t want to turn my room over without getting rid of most of it. I began wiping them down with a sacrificial bath towel (only reduced my count to 2, so I’m still good) and Lysol disinfectant spray. The door was closed, so as not to let the hot air in. Contrary to popular southern belief, one does not ‘let the cold air out.’ Air always moves from high temperatures to low temperatures, assuming equal pressure. Therefore, hot air comes in. I kept it up for 2.5 of 4 walls, but then my broom began belligerently talking politics with my boots like some whacked out scene from Fantasia. I quickly broke them up and opened the door to get some fresh oxygen, hot air be damned.

I have mailed an incredible amount of stuff home. It costs about $15-$20 per seabag to mail things to the states via space-available mail, but I think it’s worth it. Space-A is actually very inexpensive compared to all other forms of mail, and it gets my belongings to Camp Pendleton within 2-3 weeks. Dragging all that stuff out here was quite a hassle, and I’m looking forward to going home with a minimal load. I’ve mailed two seabags, a black footlocker, and a metal case that holds my xbox. I get a lot of funny looks for that aluminum case, but I don’t have a broken xbox. When you mail things home you have to let the postal Marines (as if Marines could get any more belligerent) inspect the contents and you fill out a customs form citing every item. I’ve heard we have a glorious customs experience coming in Kuwait where we’ll be separated into cage-like apparatuses and go through each item in our possession while a Kuwaiti customs official cracks a whip across our backs if we try to smuggle back Cuban cigars. I can’t wait.

Tomorrow is field day at our workplace. “Field day” is the Marine Corps term for cleaning–usually cleaning one’s habitation. It can be a verb or noun. I don’t know where it comes from. It doesn’t make sense. It just is. What’s going to make this field day interesting is the accumulation of 6 months worth of care packages, mail orders, and PX purchases. This place is more full of crap than a Christmas turkey. I’m actually looking forward to it. As my wife will attest to, I have an affection for throwing things away if I deem something no longer useful. It’s quite strange, but I actually consider it good to decrease the total amount of mass inside my house. I just like to keep things organized, and fewer things to organize equals better organization. We’re going to be throwing out a lot of stuff tomorrow. It’s going to be difficult for the pack-rats (the antithesis of me), but it’s got to be done. Some small part of me that I don’t talk about at parties will rejoice as they writhe in the agony of restoring order to chaos.

That’s all for now. I wish I could write more, but there’s just not that much to write about. It’s still a while before we pick up and leave, so there will be more posts coming soon, but I don’t guarantee them to be any less worthless than this one. You stay classy, blogosphere.