Eff You Predeployment Night

I got back from my christmas vacation and finally sat down to read through my emails only to discover predeployment night is in two days. Which is right about the time I started cursing at my computer and having a blue streak laced tantrum.


My first thought, lets skip this crap. Second thought, ugh, I should go and interact with some wives. No wait, that's stupid. Did I forget I'm anitsocial? Only to find out from my husband the next day that it is mandatory and one of us has to show. Ooh goody. Mandatory fun.


We show, husband takes children to the ill concieved "free babysitting" room. Let me explain this one. Last predeployment night there was also "free babysitting" which was a couple of single guys in a room with a tv and no crayons, and the occasionly escaping toddler. My husband, not feeling at all confident in the child care experience available, elected to stay behind to watch children. It was the same this time, only without the tv and dry erase markers and candy. I saw a three year old at the end of this whose face was painted in these markers. Next time we have vowed to control this thing ourselves. We will have crayons and paper at the very least.


Enough about the babysitting, though. They offer free pizza. Ooh free pizza! Until you find out it's Dominos every damm time. It's the sort of pizza that you look at and get indigestion from. I've made this mistake twice and refused to make it again this time. My husband, however, ate a piece while frowning at it. Also a roomful of warm pop to wash it down. Who ordered the chemical warfare to go? Thanks, I'll have a water. Less likely I'll burn out my sinuses if I burp that up.


Onto the actual meeting. My goodness, the speakers this time! Geesh. First of all the Comodor. Yeah, I don't know wtf a comodor is, either, so don't feel too bad. Everytime anyone referred to him I thought "comodor 64 is really neato/ what kind of chip you got in there? a dorrito?" Weird Al referance for any of you not nerdy enough to catch it. Anyway, he's some big wig and he was really big on laying it on thick. Everytime he talked I felt this warm breeze under my seat which I attribuated to all the smoke he was blowing up my ass. Yeah yeah yeah, you want to make us feel all nice and important to big Navy. Shove off this isn't my first patrol.


Next up, American Cross guy. He seems alright and maybe even funny, but you're here to tell me about all the red tape around the amcross messages and how to send them, please don't tell me all about the importance of preparedness and how buckling up the children is important and turning in all the pot handles on the stove is important. I mean while we're at it why don't we also lecture about how the trunk is an unacceptable receptacle for children and don't start your hair on fire. Also pouring boiling oil on your face is a stupid idea. I scoff, but maybe there were families that needed to hear about that. It does not make me feel at all that confident about my current location.


Next up NCIS. Really? NCIS has to talk to us now? What the hell for? Oooh, facebook bad. Right. Facebook facebook facebook facebook. Privacy facebook. Confisicate your stuff take you to jail. Usually they just have the COB or Captain try to scare us, this time they brought out the big guns. I sure hope these first timers didn't pee their pants over that.



After that it pretty much goes as it alwasy does. COB says, "information private. Respect it! respect it" Also, boat won battle E, big BZ to your spouse. Uh, sure, whatever. Does this get us a free day? No? Then I don't care. I'm being harsh I suppose. I'm already all annoyed at being reminded that a patrol is upcoming. And then a big emphasis on how schedules can change and there was a boat recently that went 22 days over. Everyone ooohs. Except me. This was pretty typical on our last boat. In fact rare was the patrol that came in as scheduled. I'm begining to feel a little better about our boat and our area if 22 days is a big deal. Unexpected morale boost, yay! Then him, the ombudsman, the comodor, and the fleet and family speaker go on about making sure you see your spouse's predeployment checklist. Alright, alright. So I bring it up with my husband later only to discover that they were made to turn those in weeks ago. Nice. Now they're just trying to annoy me.



Meeting ends, everyone clusterfucks it out of there. Big en masse crowd trying to get out of this tiny conferance area. I don't even think Iactually fit in the seats. I'm in the second row and it takes me five minutes to move from my seat. It's worse than a dammed airplane. Is there something wrong with the chappel that we aren't doing it there? The Red Cross guy left these neat little tubes on the stage, but not enough. Some hand grabbed the last one just before I could. Just more fuel for my annoyance. Finally push my way out of there and go to retrieve my husband and children and peel other people's children off my husband so we can get the hell out of there. I see my three year old take a drink of water and go to grab it, then I see someone else's three year old also drink out of it. Awesome, sick time at our house again.



Finally, WE MAKE IT OUT! YAY! Where I procede to tell my husband about the meeting. His favorite part was about the comodor, so he goes to work the next day tells everyone about what I said about the comodor.



This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the previous two incidents I've had on the boat. The first being my first picnic on this boat. We talked to another guy in the division. I thought his speech sounded odd, so after the picnic I ask my husband if he has some sort of dissability where my husband proceedes to laugh his ass off. Really. I had him tearing up over this one. After he calmed down he told me that he was actually puerto rican and english was a second language. Also he's going to tell him what I said. Great, I guess this will be the first person on the boat I won't be able to make eye contact with.



Second incident, our second picnic. I'm seven months pregnant and obvious. They're raffling off some liquor. One of the shipmates goes around asking around if you've filled out the raffle. He asks me and I smart assedly say "Oh yeah, I'm drinking for two now" only I think he took me seriously. Meet the second person I can't make eye contact with.

Luckily I'll probably never have to interact with the comodor again and explain myself. Hopefully.