Dustbunnies

If you’ve been following along, I usually go off on a rant about the project at about this time of the tour. If you’ve been following along, edge of the chair waiting for an explanation as to why I volunteered for another war zone in the GWOT, today is not your day. My apologies, as this one’s about the folks who travelled here with me.



We spend our days in a 16 foot by 20 foot conference room, surrounding a table built in place by the boys and girls of Red Horse. It’s a little larger and less densely packed than our first office in the I-Zed, but that’s not saying too much. Still, we each get three or four feet of table, which is just about enough to fit a machine, a mouse, and a notepad. Our main source of entertainment, besides the banter, is fly killing.

However, the longer we’re here, the fewer flies that make it into the office, and the less there are to kill. This is good in a couple of ways. One the one hand, we are less startled by the sudden crack of the swatter (two for a buck at the PX). One the other hand, there’s less dust stirred up by the swatting. On the third hand, there’s less fly goo collecting on our pads and papers.

In our VIP hooch, there’s three to a room, snorers and not. We’ve got a desk, but no chair, so very little work gets done there, mostly conversation about Tim’s sordid past (before we flew here), Glenn’s family (the bitch just had puppies), and various ideas as to what constitutes a good time. With the non-snorers, I’m uncertain. They’re the quiet ones.

Everyone drifts in and out of breakfast at their own pace, although there’s usually a few minutes when we’re all together. For lunch, we almost always take the 15 minute hike to the canvas Harvest Falcon DFAC together (barbeque brisket today, and not half bad), and moan about the job for a half hour. Supper is oftentimes smaller groups, as people use their evenings as they please. We all ate at the British DFAC Sunday evening, when rumors of fine deserts were confirmed (I also had a tasty vegetable curry).

Throughout the day, they are quick to joke, quick to sling personal insults, quick to besmirch one’s sexuality. It’s all good fun. Good guy fun, like belchin’ and belly scratchin’. So far, we don’t hate each other, but the assignment’s still young, and we spend an awful lot of time with each other.

By and large, though, they’re entertaining. Out of six, I knew five of them coming into this, and had travelled internationally with three, although never to a war zone. Two are from my office, three from the home office, and one contract hire from Idaho. Four are married. All are somewhat adventurous. Two are architects, one’s an electrical, one’s a wet civil, one’s a draughtsman, one’s a cost estimator, and one got sent home last week because the client’s sort of a dick.

As they say, there’re three types of people in the world,…