I always have to explain that damn stupid name to people I meet. Blame my Dad. He was a high school chemistry teacher in Virginia and called all his kids after the symbols for the elements in the periodic table. Don't feel sorry for me though. Save your sympathy for my brother Er and my sisters Ho and Po.
It's been a long strange journey from Virginia to where am I today. Lying in this stinking swamp just outside the city with my men waiting for the order to attack. I can't tell you who we work for. It doesn't exist, not officially. Let's just say we are in "private security" and we undertake various special assignments for a branch of the US government that you've never heard of and that doesn't exist officially either.
We trained in Colombia for this mission. But that's not where we are now. Some fat white dude calling himself Mister Dick came to the training camp and gave us a pep talk two days before we embarked on the sea journey. On board ship the final orders were handed out to us platoon leaders. Seems our battalion's role is to take over the National Defense Ministry in this godforsaken excuse for a country. But I still don't know exactly what our platoon's target will be. I have a map showing the ministry buildings and the codes that will be used to notify us which part of the complex is our responsibility. The huge concrete ministry campus is built around a maze of quadrangles and there is a letter code for each one.
The radio is crackling. I hear the orders for the other platoon leaders. I'm next...
"Xe, seize R quad."
This story, fictional of course, was written as an entry in the group writing project proposed by Carol Anne of Five O'Clock Somewhere, "This is Awkward".
4 comments:
ouch. Gotta be a padded cell in the punitentiary that's waiting...
I couldn't resist...
Pat, of course, swears he NEVER engaged in puns until he met my dad.
Given your entry in the project, I'm making you an honorary member of my family.
Thanks Carol Anne. My approach was inspired by a BBC radio panel game program, My Word!, that I used to listen to in my youth. The principal contestants were two comedy writers Frank Muir and Denis Norden.
To quote from the Wiki...
"In the final round, each team was asked to give the origin of a famous phrase or quotation. Once the answers were given, Muir and Norden were invited to explain the "real" origin of their respective teams' phrases; each proceeded to weave a shaggy dog story leading up to an outrageous pun upon his phrase."
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