Gomer Pyle's Got Nothin' On Me

(So, I did actually write this yesterday after work but forgot to post it.  I blame it on early-onset insanity.)

Miraculously, I made it through Day One of reporting to the ship with only three catastrophes.

I know, aren't you just so proud?!?

I swear.  Most of the time I'm cool, calm, collected and have everything under control.  Sometimes, though.... I'm just a trainwreck waiting to happen, no matter how much I prepare for the unforeseen.

It's as though the Universe is mocking me; as though some mischievous little fairy is floating on a cloud somewhere in the sky and laughing as she rains down evil pixie dust on me.  Anything that can go wrong, will.

I woke up this morning, stumbled sleepily downstairs, poured myself some coffee and looked at the clock. 5:45. "Good," I thought."Plenty of time to get around without rushing."  I showered, dried my hair and got dressed without incident (incident usually meaning I spill coffee on my white uniform blouse and have to frantically hunt for a bleach pen).

So far, so good.  I left on time, traffic moved along nicely, I swung by May's house to pick her up and we headed over to the building where we were told to meet our sponsor from the ship at 0845.  My buddy Sheay met May and I in front of the building.

"Are we supposed to go in or meet him out here?" he asked.  May and I both shrugged and we all stood there looking around for a few seconds, trying to determine our next course of action (and probably looking like lost baby birds waiting for a worm to fall out of the sky).  And then as I was looking around, a horrifying realization slowly dawned on me.

I forgot to sew my rating badge onto my new dress blue uniform jacket.

If you know anything about military uniforms, you know that this is really bad.  BAD. Bad juju.  Not only is it the epitome of unsatness and shitbaggery, but without a rating badge I'm technically wearing the uniform of a lowly Seaman Recruit instead of a Third Class Petty Officer.  Which I probably don't need to tell you is totally fucking shameful.

So I had to walk around like that the entire day praying that no one who outranked me would A) notice and either B) make fun of me or C) chew me a new asshole.

No one noticed, though, thank the good Lord.  Poor May tried to console me but I was totally annoyed with myself and stewed about it for at least an hour.

I knew the check, check, double check crap was futile.  Nothing ever seems to go exactly right.

Oh, but there's more.  In addition to this pleasant observation, I also found out later in the morning that one of my evaluations was missing from my service record .  And of course, it just so happened that the missing eval was the one on which I received my highest eval score and an EP.  So now I have to pray that I have a copy of it here at home; otherwise I'm going to have to call people at NNPTC and cut through massive layers of stupidity and red tape to get one.

Y'all know that bad things happen in multiples of three, right?  So the morning was not entirely complete until I discovered that I'd lost my military ID.

This is like... I don't know, I don't even have the words to explain how dreadful losing your military ID is.  It's like sobadthatyouwanttoshityourselfandwould ratherhaveyourfingernailspulledoutwithapliersthantellsomeonethatyoulostyourmilitaryid bad.  Losing a military ID is like losing your wallet; that sucker has your full name, birth date and full social security number on it, and if the wrong person were to get their hands on it, you can kiss your identity goodbye.  Not only that but if an ID is truly lost, it's a huge security violation; a report has to be filed with the local police, your chain of command has to be notified, you will get your ass reamed, you will have to explain yourself to multiple people much more important than yourself and occasionally punishment is involved.

Once I discovered it was missing, I frantically started digging through my paperwork on the desk while a couple other people started searching in all the places we'd been since we entered the building.  I had a small coronary for a good five or ten minutes until our ship's sponsor found it across the room underneath the chairs we'd been sitting in earlier.  He probably thought I was some kind of special needs, too.

Fucked-up uniform... check.  Missing paperwork... check.  Lost military ID... check.

I made it through the rest of the day unscathed, but let's hope I'm not such a hot mess tomorrow.