Baaaah humbug.
So I promised that I would write about something funny this weekend. I really tried to, unfortunately I also got sick this weekend. This means that between the general “can’t think ’cause my head is stuffed up” and the effects of “non-drowsy” cold medication my writing quickly became the wrong kind of funny. Instead of funny “ha ha” we got funny “stoned guy with access to a blog”.
So here’s the story I promised.
One day, shortly after I returned to the states from Bosnia, my unit got a brand new barracks. This was a big deal because our previous barracks could be politely described as “a cesspool”. Soldiers had doors that couldn’t be shut or locked. Rooms had exposed wiring. One room had a hole into the next room. Some of the common areas had missing windows.
So we get these shiny new barracks. My Battalion moves in and lives happily ever after, right?
Of course not.
In the Army, much like in the regular world, if you get something new, people you work with will stop by to look at it. In the regular world this is called “looking at the new stuff”. In the Army this is called “inspection”.
Anyone who has been in the military is familiar with this particular unpleasantness. For everyone else, imagine this:
After a long week at work, your boss announces that Friday will be a half day. Everybody starts to cheer. Then your boss announces that to go along with this half day, he and his friends are going to come to your house. Then they are going to check to see how clean and organized it is. Your shoes need to be lined up under your bed, and places like the top of your refrigerator and curtains need to be dusted. If you fail to keep any portion of your living space less than perfectly clean and tidy, instead of a half day off you get to work unpaid overtime.
So naturally enough, inspection is not a popular event with people that live in the barracks.
Well, because we had new barracks, pretty much every step in our chain of command felt the need to have their own inspection, starting with our 1st Sergeant and going all the way up to Group Commander. For nearly two months, we had weekly inspections.
As I have stated before, this was shortly after returning from Bosnia. Coming home from a deployment is an interesting time for a young soldier, economically speaking. Due to your location, and the various restrictions placed on your behavior, you typically have much more limited access to money spending opportunities than normal. Even if you were able to go out on the town, things were dirt cheap, this being Eastern Europe.
Long story short, when young, single soldiers come home from a deployment, they frequently have a large reserve of unspent cash.
This means that you soon have a bunch of young men, with more money than common sense, released into the local economy.
Which just naturally enough leads to my roommate and me, standing in a novelty shop, discovering that there is such a thing as an Inflatable Sheep.
And we thought about the upcoming inspection.
And we looked at the display of inflatable sheep.
So of course we purchased a small pile of these.
That Friday we had another inspection. Our Sgt Major entered the room, looked at our new flock, muttered a quiet “Oh hell no” did an about face, and walked out. Inspection over.
We pulled this routine over several inspections, eventually adding costume pieces to several. I had a Catholic Priest sheep, and my roommate was on his way to getting a full set of Village People Sheep. We’d arrange them differently for each inspection.
The strange thing was that for most of this time our chain of command refused to acknowledge that they were there. They’d spend the entire inspection trying to ignore them and keep a straight face, give us whatever comments our room needed, and then leave.
It turns out that in military circles, having a room full of inflatable sheep is practically a superpower.
Eventually one officer broke down halfway through the inspection and asked, “Why do you have so many inflatable sheep in your room?”. I love this question because it implies that the strange part is the amount of rubber sheep.
My roommate, at the position of attention, and with a perfectly straight face, responded, “Sir, it is my understanding that you are no longer allowed to ask me questions of this nature”.
The officer considered this for a second, said, “Right”, walked out, and started laughing as soon as he hit the hallway. Inspection passed.
PS:
And before anyone mentions it, yes I know that my roommate quoted from that “SGT BILKO” movie. It was still funny.
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September 25th, 2007 at 4:24 am
wow, simply wow, see my buddy was planning to buy those for my birthday (as a joke) but apparently they can’t get shipped across the border (I’m in Canada) so his planned failed, So in retaliation i got him a Fleshlight, which his parents believe to be a “piggy bank”
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September 25th, 2007 at 4:42 am
I have often wondered the story behind #90 on the list. Now I know. I laughed for a good 10 minutes. I am still laughing now.
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September 25th, 2007 at 5:44 am
hehe ok, that was funny! Thanks for the very large amount of giggles! You ever think of just making entries that tell the story behind some of the entries on the list? I’d love the hear the story about the (now) infamous barbie dance and the swallowing of an entire prescription bottle filled with red mike and ike’s
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September 25th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Jesus, this was the most hilarious thing I have read in a while! Some people might think you are making this stuff up. I’m here to tell you that, as a former officer and battery commander, I have seen a myriad of things is soldiers’ rooms. Quite frankly, this was creative, inventive, and entertaining. We, on the other side, don’t get any excitement out of the deal either. I would rather have been out with my BC and my LTs getting drunk as opposed to wandering through soldiers’ rooms to tell you the truth, so to have something entertaining to see would have been a pleasant change, albeit disconcerting under the circumstances. Your squad leader must have had his (or her) hands full!
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September 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I can sooooooo picture that!
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September 25th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Yeah, I thought you were a girl. I’m not a male Non-Commissioned officer, whatever that is. I’m female, and a civilian with no ties to the army.
My boyfriend just sent me your list of 213 things Skippy Isn’t Allowed To Do. Hilarious. He referred to you as “He” in his email, and I replied,
“Guy? Or Gal?
If Guy then quite GenderF*ck for this man’s army,
eg.
2. My proper military title is “Specialist Schwarz” not “Princess Anastasia”.
5. Not allowed to get silicone breast implants.
18. May no longer perform my now (in)famous “Barbie Girl Dance” while on duty.
etc…
By the way, I have had to start a new list, tentatively titled:
Things Larry is Not Allowed To Do To Elizabeth, Even If He Has Never Before Considered It, Because Now It
Has Been Pointed Out To Him He May Well Be Tempted.
28. Don’t take the batteries out of the other soldiers alarm clocks (Even if they do hit snooze about forty times).
I know a dangerous precedent when I see one!
Thanks for the laughs.
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September 25th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
PS The sheep story is very good by the way. Obviously I was responding to a different post. I’ll have to poke around your blog to see if more of the 213 Disallowed etc. are written up in more detail.
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September 26th, 2007 at 4:31 am
We had an inflatable sheep in Bosnia…..her name was Shirley. The airman that brought her would throw her in the back of the Hummer when out on patrol. The Army brass found it hilarious.
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September 26th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Fantastic. I hope we eventually get to learn all the stories behind all 213 things you’re not allowed to do. That will keep the blog going for some time. :)
For this one…
104. Vodka, green food coloring, and a â??Cool Mintâ? Listerine® bottle is not a good combination.
Is this related to a prank that Pixar pulled on the Listerine people when they were hired to make a commercial? They replaced the Listerine in one bottle with apple juice and during a meeting one animator bet a second animator he couldn’t drink a bottle of the stuff so the second guy “took the bet” and started chugging it, and all the Listerine representatives at the meeting got physically ill watching him.
Or were you just wanting people to get drunk after brushing their teeth? :)
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Snyarhedir reply on January 25th, 2011 10:54 pm:
Keep the blog going for some time? Forget that! This blog is immortal!
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September 26th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
please PLEASE tell me you can give us photos of the sheep! (I’m picturing the priest-sheep leading a full flock in prayer services, if you can pardon the pun: old lady sheep in church bonnets, baby sheep with their mom and dad sheep…..)
thanks: I needed this!
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September 26th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I got one for ya. We had a weapons (2W1x1 USAF) Christmas party in Misawa,Japan in 03 where we didn’t actually buy gifts for each other. Instead we each went to the Porn/sex toy vending machines and each bought stuff for door prizes. I can’t even remember what I got as a prize but this young busty female E-2 got clear neon-green Anal beads. Now there are actually two more things that made us crack up.
1. A rather unenlightened guy in our shop asked what they were, when we told him what they were for he responded with, “So you pull on them like a rip cord?”
2. Our Expediter thought it would be funny if we hang them from the rear view mirror.
#2 has brought on 2 things that I want to add to the list
1. You should never hang Anal beads from the rear view mirror of a work truck.
2. When asked why you have anal beads hanging from the rear view mirror you should never reply back to a CMSgt, “Is that what they are?Are you trying to tell us something?”
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Snyarhedir reply on January 25th, 2011 11:11 pm:
For a Christmas party? That is just wrong.
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September 27th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
We got a sheep once for my Bradley gunner as a joke. He took with him everywhere. If you deflate it it fits in the sponson box for easy storage. We also had a blow up doll that we would put a uniform and a CVC on and put up in the turret at night to make the OPFOR think that we had a guy in the turret on watch rather then somewhere else. One time the CO came over to the track on a night with no moonlight to talk with the PSG and spent about 5 minutes talking to the doll thinking it was the PSG. That was freaking hilarious.
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September 27th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
[…] new flock, muttered a quiet ?Oh hell no? did an about face, and walked out. Inspection over." Baaaah humbug. __________________ Consult with your own advisor or representative. My thoughts should not be […]
September 27th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
[…] new flock, muttered a quiet ?Oh hell no? did an about face, and walked out. Inspection over." Baaaah humbug. __________________ Consult with your own advisor or representative. My thoughts should not be […]
September 27th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
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October 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Ah… this has inspired me in cadet pranks SO much. thank you.
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October 30th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I haven’t laughed this hard in years! I honestly think I just pulled a muscle!
I have friends still in at Bragg and Pope, I am so going to have to tell them about this!
Wonder if they have inflatable cattle?
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November 3rd, 2007 at 5:29 am
I think the proper retort from the inspecting CO should have been “. . . and make sure the pressure in those sheep isn’t too high. We don’t need any exploding sheep in our new barracks, not even plastic ones.”
You didn’t pose them in any suggestive positions, did you, say, the priest in the missionary position with the inflatable doll?
Why is it that response #8 presumes that all sheep are female? How could there be any lambs without some randy rams about?
Hey Dwayne, if there are inflatable cattle, maybe there are inflatable horses and inflatable cowboys (“Brokeback Mountain”, anyone?) but real electric cattle prods! Now there’s a good sex toy!
Response #9 reminds me of a funny story my dad told me of his college chemistry class (but DON’T do this at home; seriously it would kill you in any number of ways). They were in organic chem lab and had their own supplies of chromic acid for cleaning out glassware of its last stubborn stains. Chromic acid is a powerful corrosive, oxidizing agent that happens to have that familiar cola caramel color. The lab teaching assistant was something of an overbearing pest, so Dad’s labmate decided to pull a prank on him by pouring out his chromic acid into another bottle (it’s normally in a glass bottle with “Chromic Acid” molded in its side to make sure nobody mistakes what it is) and replacing it with flat Coke. Eventually the lab TA started berating Dad’s labmate about something, at which point he said “I’ve had enough of this abuse, I can’t take it anymore!”, opened his chromic acid bottle and started chugging it. The TA just about passed out, but I imagine Dad and his labmates got a good kick out of it. Thanks, Dad!
Man you make me sorry I’m too old to enlist and go over to the ‘stan or the Sandbox; I think I’d fit right in there. Keep it up!
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November 5th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
If you sold those inflatable sheep on this website I’m sure you’d make a few extra bucks and we’d end up with more sheep stories from the active personal that buy them :P
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November 5th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Active personnel hell. I’d buy one and have more fun with it than is allowed at medieval events. “No, your majesty, I have no idea how an inflatable sheep ended up in your throne.”
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November 9th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Oh…I hurt my self laughing….
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November 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army…
The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army…
November 16th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Not to get into rivalry or anything, but I think the result would have been a bit different had you been in the Marine Corps. I’m just speculating (because I never saw such a thing done) but I believe you would have provided an officer or senior enlisted man a good laugh, a great story to tell later at the Staff NCO club, and a bunch of extra duty all weekend cleaning stuff.
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November 25th, 2007 at 6:29 am
God, I remember those days. We had a particularly anal Platoon Sergeant during my last few months of Active duty. One of those “constantly angry E-7 former Drill Sergeant” Platoon Sergeants… just loved to have his room inspections. Seems one of the guys in my platoon kept a big purple dildo on his table claiming that he had it because he “liked the colors”. That was one of our more interesting inspections…
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December 3rd, 2007 at 5:51 am
I am laughing so hard I am crying right now, that is perfect.
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December 16th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Too damn funny.
I’m going to get a few inflatable sheep for my room now.
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December 17th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Hmm, I just might have to get an inflatable chicken or ten, in case I meet up with any RCR folk.
(The nickname for the regiment is Run Chicken Run ;) )
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December 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
That’s friggin genius… I’ve gone with a pair of pugil sticks, helmets, and pads. Hell my old roommate even pulled out his pink suit. Yes. A Pink Suit. There’s always the porn on top of the magazines in the head. And the ripped out pictures from playboy in your wall locker. My favorite so far was when one of my roommates left his laptop open on accident and our Gunny (E-7) started looking through his photos and saw pictures of his Australian Girlfriend. Needless to say he didn’t care about the room. Left with a smile on his face though.
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December 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Hmm, 2007 was the YEAR for POG inspections. Umm, well, while my fiancee (in 1st BN, I’m in 6th), who is now my wife, was at a two week training event, I stayed in her room (so as to keep my spick and span), thinking that they wouldn’t inspect a room that was locked and the occupants “deployed”. I was wrong. Way wrong. Don’t ever have a bong in a barracks room… even if there is persian tobacco in it… or litter the floor with bottles of alcohol… especially when you are underage… and if the room is signed out to a female, don’t have guys clothes strewn around the room, and for Sergeant Major’s sake, don’t let two weeks of pizza crusts pile on the window seal… I won’t mention the bathroom. Her counseling statement (yes She got in trouble for it–they wouldn’t acknowledge my prominent hand in events) cited “…the horrific odor eminating from the room, into the hallway….” It was kind of funny when I cleaned the room that night, and when she arrived the next day (accompanied by her entire NCO support channel) the room that had formerly seemed to be the home of an orc tribe, was the cleanest room in the compound (I am quite skilled at detailed cleaning and making a quick job of it at that). That just made them angrier. I love army…. Sorry, stupid story I felt like sharing.
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January 31st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
got one of those for my buddy for a christmas present and he was the new dorm mascot!we even got him a santa costume!
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March 3rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I’ve heard of Soldiers doing stuff like this. When I was in Korea one of the guys from the battery I was attached to had a Barbie blanket he took out specifically for inspections. Made them a lot easier to handle!
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March 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Last room inspection I had happened while I was in AIT, and the drills sat in our room playing Halo for an hour because my room-mate left his Xbox out.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 25th, 2011 11:37 pm:
That is very weird in a very normal way.
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March 31st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Yeppers. We had something similar go on when they posted the drawing of the Offishul Layout of all items in the footlocker for inspection. Since we were in seperate squad bays in a 3-story barracks with battalion HQ in a seperate office building, and since the new Battalion CO [the reason for the inspection] wanted all the companies to be uniform in their approach to doing things his way, they sent copies of the diagram to the company clerks for reproduction, distribution, and posting on the unit bulletin boards.
Which would have been okay, except that our company clerk was a bit of a cartoonist, and added a little cartoon figure of a dead soldier lying at attention in the *personal item* space of the drawing.
Whereupoon, most of us went out and got little plastic GI Joe dolls or other military figurines to go in the appointed space. It being near Christmas at the time, some got little ornament figures of Santa, neatly shaved off his beard, and made up little fatigue outfits for him, right down to tankers CVC helmets made of miniature football helmets, spraypainted olive drab.
When the good colonel left our building, wondering why toy soldiers were so popular in HQ Company, he found a little GI Joe sitting on the hood of his jeep, with a tiny little cigarette in its mouth made out of a short piece of soda straw, and actually smoking, courtesy of a small chunk of dry ice within.
Whatever he said to the SMAJ and our First Sergeant was not reported. But our First Sgt always grinned when he told the story.
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March 31st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
***Which just naturally enough leads to my roommate and me, standing in a novelty shop, discovering that there is such a thing as an Inflatable Sheep.***
The dozen or so pink plastic Flamingos we set out in front of our Consolodated Mess Hall/DFAC one morning while all the mess sergeants were fussing over getting every spot inside scrubbed and shiny were the result of a similar local discovery. WE had debated painting them OD, but were concerned that if we did, they might have been overlooked.
One of the guys on duty inside told us about the look on the faces of the assorted mess NCOs and officer when the inspection team staggered in laughing their heads off. The cooks couldn’t figure out what they’d found so funny.
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June 1st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
You know, as a vet, I must say; The appropriate response to “why do you have so many inflatable sheep?” is “Sir, how many inflatable sheep would you recommend as appropriate?”
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Weatherbabe reply on April 4th, 2009 10:43 am:
*snicker*
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August 6th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Hrm. Inflatable sheep huh? I have a particularly uptight NCO, and a key to his office. How many sheep would you say it would take to fill a 10’x12′ room, all the way to the 9′ ceiling?
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April 4th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Apperently laughing so hard you have tears in your eyes at work makes people wonder what you are smoking. I wish I had thought of that for the inspections we had back in tech school
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November 4th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
When I was at Summer Training for Army Cadets. They told us to get our acts together and clean up our tents each morning for inspection but the one day we don’t… a Brigadier General, the LCol in charge of the whole camp and the Major in charge of our Company decide to inspect our tent out of the 30 male tents. I walked to our tent from the range to get something and found a C/WO fixing it up for us.
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Dennis reply on November 4th, 2009 9:58 pm:
Luckily, they didn’t notice the pudding stains.
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November 11th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Wow… just wow! I’d always wondered about #90, and this post didn’t disappoint. By the time I finished reading, I was laughing so hard my ribs hurt.
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January 25th, 2011 at 10:41 pm
What mainly makes that so hilarious is how freaking RANDOM it is.
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January 25th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Maybe I should watch that movie.
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September 25th, 2016 at 4:08 am
Back in the dinosaur days of the U.S.Army (before the internet) There was still international short wave broadcases BBC, VOA, Dutches Welle, Radio Holland, AIR (All India Radio). And you could buy table top short wave radios. Being Signal Corps, I had purchased several years earlier an FRG-7 multiband radio. AM band to 30MHZ. And I used it in my barracks rooms in 3 separate overseas tours. Flash to Ft Gordon,GA (Home of the Signal Corps) I’m in Barracks, and I set up my radio, a bit of old black and white frame wire soldered to an old metal slinky. (Yes there were metal slinky’s) Had it for years. So, being a nice person, and not wanting to offend the CO, I put the stretched coil antenna up in the overhead ontop of the push up ceiling tiles. Get called into the C.O’s office. “Why do you have a coil of metal in the overhead and leading down to a radio?”
Explained it’s an antenna. “You can’t have that up there, it’s a electrical hazzard. There’s Electric wiring up there!” Tried to explain that the wiring is all eiteher inside conduit, or inside braided metal encased. CO didn’t want to hear that. So I can’t do that. Being a smart arse, I check with Post Engineers, explained, they said, no problem, we’ll send a note to your CO if needbe. Decided I had enough trouble with company already. Ended up moving out without asking for housing allowance, and rented a bedroom with another SSG from one of the MOS courses I inspected, and used to work with in Germany, and when I was an instructor at the course.
Extra added stupidity. The Orrificer (deliberate mispelling) was a Signal Officer.
Extra Note: My previous assignment prior to this was my 2nd Korea tour, this time at Seoul Main Post. And I had the radio set up in my barracks room with the same slinky antenna attached, but not strung up across the room. For a barracks inspection by the 1st Sig Bde Commanding Officer, a full bird col. . All he asked, was: “Does that antenna really work?” Replied that it did, and that I found out about slinky antenna’s in a SWL magazine, and in fact they were used *covertly* by people who wear funny green floppy hats.
Extra note 2: Traditional slinky antenna’s for ham operation uses 2 slinky coils in a dipole configuration, I used only one with the feed wire soldered to one end as a variable end fed long wire antenna. Since the shortwave reciever could be tuned to whatever length antenna connected to it, I didn’t worry about exact length for the frequencies I listened to. Just stretched it out as far as possible in the room, and orientated for best reception as possible. Sadly now with the interwebs, most countries have given up International Propaganda.. er International Broadcasting in English, or Native Laguages as not cost effective. Or they’ve given up transmittingg towards North America.
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