Welcome to another installment of Finish The Sentence Friday where a bunch of bloggers get together and work off the same writing prompt creating unique blogs of awesome. I read through most, if not all, the blogs every time we do this, and I’m not disappointed. These writers are talented, intelligent, and compassionate. Check them out if you get a chance (link to the linkup at the end of this post)…
Whenever I hear the term Epic Fail, I think of the time when… Well. Shit. I know I’ve failed on epic scales on a regular basis most of my life, and for whatever reason, I’ve blocked them out of memory.
Epic Fail. A fail that’s epic… here goes…
My husband was in the Air Force. I had gotten out and served as spouse at this point. I was managing tax offices. My hubs’ car was broken down, so we shared a vehicle. He calls me, “I’m at the dental clinic and will need a ride back to the shop.”
Fine. I’m the manager. I can leave whenever I want. But I have a crap ton of work to do… right?
So I get on base, and I notice we were in Exercise Mode. That’s when the military plays reindeer games pretending we are in a war scenario for training. The issue with exercise mode is during the day, the base changes security levels, and in my history at that base in those exercises, they keep you in delta for most of the day. When in Delta, you treat the base as if it’s under attack. Nobody is allowed to leave a building in Delta. I couldn’t risk being stuck on base all day and lose my job over a stupid exercise.
Only problem is this was back when digital cell phones first came out, and our analog phones didn’t work on base. So I had no cell phone to call. So, I called the Dental Clinic and explained the situation. “I just need to pick up my husband and take him to his shop, and I work a civilian job, I can’t risk being held up all day and not be able to leave the building. Are we in Delta?”
“Yes. You won’t be able to leave the building once you enter it.”
Historically, when we did exercises, we stayed in Delta through most of the duty day, sometimes longer. Sometimes they kept it going for 4 hours after we were supposed to go home. So I asked, “Is there any way you can find my husband and let me speak to him?”
“No. HIPAA.”
“Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I need to talk to him. The only methods of communication would risk getting me fired or you handing him the phone. Can you at least confirm if he’s even there?”
“No. HIPAA.”
“Well, what if you find him and give him a message for me telling him I’m on the phone if he wants to speak to me.”
“Can’t. HIPAA.”
“Look, I’m familiar with HIPAA. You can’t tell me about his medical records. That’s it. I’m not asking anything medical. You don’t have to tell me if he’s there. You don’t have to tell me anything. Just tell HIM that his wife is on the phone.
“No. I’m not going to look for your husband. You will have to come in the building. Because HIPAA”
“Is there any way I can be exempt from the exercise as a civilian?”
“No.”
For 20 minutes, I haggled. Begged. Pleaded. Every minute, they raised their voice more. I asked if they’d send him outside. If they could tell me if he was even done to pick him up… They were downright nasty at some point, which figures. The medical squadron was the embarrassment to the Air Force on that base.
At one point, I was like, “If I have to go into that building to find my husband, I will be leaving regardless of the exercise.” And they responded, “OH NO YOU WON’T….” I was like, “What are you going to do? Force me to stay at gunpoint?” Yes they would. And they had no problem screaming, cussing and telling me so. I think they wanted to kill me over the phone.
Finally, really upset, in tears, I got off the phone.
I called my husband’s shop and explained the situation, and they had no idea where he was. I told them he was probably at the dental clinic, and if they ever get out of Delta, could someone go give him a ride back to the shop. They agreed.
I get home from work. Apparently, the dental clinic thought I was a terrorist in the exercise. They thought I was pretending all that to try to talk them into doing something they weren’t allowed to do as part of the exercise. My husband was in the waiting room during the conversation, and heard everything from their end thinking to himself, “I feel sorry for that guy; his wife is going to be pissed.”
Epic Fail.
Because I was in the Air Force stationed on that base and most people in my squadron knew me, the gossip traveled fast. When I went to pick my husband up from work, I was greeted with, “Derka Derka Mohammed Jihad!” In fact, it became a joke. That’s how people greeted me frequently from that point on. I finally embraced it and was like, “Derka Derka bitches!”
I Facebook searched my name and the word, “fail.” I didn’t know I could do that until now. Searching through statuses of mine with the word fail in it, I realized I say, “Without fail,” a lot. Probably too much. But I did strike gold…
Yes I wrote this. I don’t know why I wrote this. But I wrote this…
April 1, 2014
AKA April Fools Day
Vaguebooking is fun I might get used to it. Anyway, if you are one of those people who don’t like me, you are adorably cute by the way to not like someone like me, but anyway, I’m thinking of starting a class for people who don’t like me. Y’all suck at the insults, back handed compliments, and gossip. You need some mad skillz. I don’t normally do things like that to people, but I am an expert at criticizing myself and I got better dirt on me than you do, so if you really want it, let me know. I’ll start with some good stuff here…
1. I got kicked out of college for possession of marijuana. The gossip was I slept with the entire football team and was pregnant with twins. No, only the QB and FB (that’s full back, not facebook, and he could bench press twice my weight if that tells you how awesome the experience was). Nevermind that I volunteered my time to tutor some redshirts.
2. My house gets messy pretty bad. In fact, I make Roseanne look like June Cleaver. It’s really because I am so arrogant about my intellect that I think I’m too good for housework. How sad is that? Even more sad, usually the only people who have issues with this are people whose houses I’ve cleaned and kids I babysat a lot. You can probably hook up with my mother in law and talk for days about how I suck in this realm. Can you believe I gave the kids a chocolate milkshake for breakfast? Like shitty mom alert with that.
3. I wrote a bad check before. One I tried to pay back but they don’t have a record of it. The other I did pay back and they still let me write checks. One I wrote after watching someone pay off a bad check thinking to myself, “What kind of person writes a bad check?” Instant karma.
4. I am in debt up to my eyeballs in student loans for a college degree I never finished.
5. I have dimples on my butt when I suck in my muscles. A lot of dimples. They are not cute. It looks like a raisin. OMG, that’s a nickname you can give me. Raisin Butt.
I have a lot more dirt. Sign up for the class if you need it. You probably do because I am so one of those appearances can be deceiving type of gal. I’m pretty cool with my flaws and fears and insecurities so really, you can take a baseball bat to this stuff and I really wouldn’t give two shits. I’m a bum, and I have bum pride. Team Hobo.
I can’t tell which is more of an epic fail. Number 1 or number 5. I think 5 is the epic fail in that list.
For more Finish the Sentence Friday, check out Finding Ninee.
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