I spy, with my little eye....

I was going through my site counter stats and noticed with a shock that someone from the Department of Veterans Affairs has been looking at my blog!! And someone from Denmark! And someone in Alaska! Ok, so I know who the person in Alaska was, but the DVA thing made me wonder, all of a sudden, if Man has superiors who are just checking up on me every now and again.

I suddenly want to either do something extremely goofy, or go and erase all of my goofy stuff. Do you ever have that feeling? I guess I havn't quite outgrown a slight impulse to laugh at authority.

And who the heck do I know in New York, you know? This whole blog thing started out with just a handful of friends and relatives taking a peak every now and then and I keep forgetting (you know, every time I come here to bleed) that someone I don't know quite so well is taking a peek into the depths of my life and thoughts.

Ok, so maybe not the most brutally honest, clandestine, yet (ahem) wonderfully intricate and profound workings of my mind.

But I did something stupid the other day. You want to hear about it? Of course you do.

I was going to visit post one day. There's something in the military called Force Protection Conditions (you can read about them here) and we are in FPCON Alpha, which means there is a low level of general threat. Which makes sense, us fighting something like 7 wars at once and all. As a result of this, we have papers posted everywhere reminding us not only what FPCON we're in, but also how to recognize a Muslim extremist (as opposed to the vast majority of perfectly nice, Muslim moderates) and what to watch out for in unidentified, unmarked packages left in public places. (I call them UUPs, not only because I like to name everything, but also because it's fun to say "watch out for the UUPs" which is pronounced like "yoops" as in "yoops, I shouldn't have left that brown paper wrapped Christmas parcel in the front seat of my car, because a bomb squad is here to detonate my vehicle, so how am I going to get these groceries home?") These signs are all over the commissary. Which is totally something I want to think about while grocery shopping, especially if I do something dumb and bring all four kids with me.

Anyway, back to me being stupid. I was going through the ID check point at the front gate (which is always an intimidating experience, being faced with three layers of road barriers arranged in a maze, as well as tire spikes and even more road barriers that rise out of the ground with a click of a button. I'm sure it's a red button.) and handed my ID to the security guard. He looked like a nice guy, and there was a fully armed and armored service person standing right next to him. I was exhausted and right in the middle of last week's "please ceiling, fall on my head" personal drama so I do what I do best: make stupid jokes to alleviate my stress. So I recalled Bill Cosby's funeral bit ("Doesn't the deceased look like himself?") and smiled and said "don't I look like myself?" The security guard sort chuckled nervously, looked back at GI Grim (who, did I mention, had an M-16 in his hands?) and said "ma'am, I'm sure you do every day of the week." I thought about how I woke up this morning looking more like a brutalized banshee, laughed a said "well, I don't know about that. Have a nice day!"

As soon as I started to drive away I realized that right about then I should be crashing into a road barrier and hearing huey's descend upon me, just in case I still looked like a banshee and they thought that meant that I was a Muslim extremist. Which I'm not. Besides, I'm a very tall white woman with 4 white kids in my minivan. How extremely Muslim could I look?

I kicked myself in the rear all day about that and couldn't bring myself to mention it to Man, in case he thought they would try to detain him the next day on account of having a wife who doesn't know when to shut up. If GI Grim can't keep me quiet, what would?

-sigh-

So, if someone from the DVA is reading this and I have "made stupid remark to gate guard" on some sort of secret, personal record, just know that I'm very sorry and it won't happen again.