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July 17, 2002
think about dixie
Once I was outside the gate, I realized that chief never told me which light was out. What's more, I realized that if I went back in to ask, he'd give me that long-suffering, why-I-gotta-deal-with-college-boys? look, and say, "Probably the one that's not glowing."
I headed off to the right, and thought briefly that, with my luck, it'd be a light in the other direction. And then I laughed at my silly pessimism.
After walking three-quarters of the way around the perimeter, I found the busted light. Fixing it was easy enough, if you discount the fact that the circuit was live, and every piece of metal in the area was 300 degrees from sitting in the desert sun.
I climbed down the ladder, looked up at the now-glowing light, and started to grab the ladder (which had put on a lot of weight in our brief relationship) for the walk back to the gate.
Then I thought about it, gave it a hard shove, and pushed it over the fence. It made a satisfying clatter when it hit the other side, but no one said "Ow!"
I'd been hoping for an "Ow!"
But who would be stupid enough to be that close to the perimeter?
The one I was outside of.
Satisfied with a job well-done (or close enough for government work, at least), that's when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.
Slowly turning in the cool, casual manner of someone totally exposed in a foreign country in the middle of a war, I locked eyes with a large, wild Persian cat who was staring at me with that "the fuck is your problem" look cats do so well.
"Where the hell did you come from?" I asked it.
"Mrowr," said the cat. Or I think it was mrowr. I don't speak Arabic.
Since it was a stray, and I was a complete stranger it had never seen before carrying several blunt objects, the cat wandered up, scent-marked my pants legs, and demanded I scratch under it's chin. The Cat Slave tattoo on my forehead is in a universal language, apparently.
"Huh," I said, as the cat started purring loudly, "and here I thought the locals were unfriendly."
"Deutschland fur Deutscher - Auslander Raus," muttered the cat.
"I don't speak Arabic," I reminded it.
"Persian," it purred.
"Whatever. Hey, you hungry? Think I got an MRE with me."
"Meals Rejected by Ethiopians," snickered the cat.
"Oh, see, why you got to go there?"
Posted by Aaron at July 17, 2002 06:41 AM
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