Double Digits, Almost

I'm not counting, so don't quote me.

Today, this morning actually, after a long and mainly bogus force pro guard shift, in which a positive being I finished the book that I started earlier in the day, No Way To Treat A First Lady by Christopher Buckley, I found an odd buzz around the company breakfast table. It wasn't that they were at all impressed at me finishing a 287 page book in the course of only a few hours reading, or the fact that we were about to indulge in a breakfast that reminded of us a Saved By The Bell episode, re-ran and dated. It was indeed the fact that we are well over two thirds done with this deployment. Not only that we are on the verge of being in Double Digits.

None of us are statitioner's, rocket surgeon's, or smart, so the actual figuring out of the 'exact' number of days we have left in country, could not be ascertained. Although we did assign three individuals the task in which they now have 4 hours to figure it out, but we aren't holding our breath, because a) we're infantrymen and b) holding your breath for four hours, you would most certainly die. All evidence would lead to approximately 100 days left here though. Which that number in itself is something, magical.

One Hundred. Just the sound of it is so, wholesome, so powerful, so wonderful sounding that it's no reason we've thrown it into everything we are about in the United States. One Dollar is made of One Hundred Cents. Children's rhymes so epically reach one hundred with a one two skip a few. Pitchers in baseball try and reach 100 miles per hour. It's a punishment as well as a blessing, as it's 100 standards of this. In truth the whole idea of ONE HUNDRED, if not sensationally hip, is somewhat majestic and all powerful.

That leaves us hating it. Why can't it be ninety-nine already? Wayne Gretzky wore 99, and he was the 'Great One' so for one hundred, I detest. Where did you get off being so great, such a family value? Double Digits, is the romance period for us here, and for today, one hundred has ruined that. Not taken it away, but is seemingly delaying movement of time to allow that two digit number to come, to leave us feeling, smelling Ft. Bragg, Sylmar, Heaven. That's one hundred bad, repeat breakfasts left here. The idea of such a thing is almost disgusting, that the number 100 could be so selfish to want to continue on this day.

The buzz is still strong, the countdown towards ecstasy. If we can make it through today, we that's just 99 left, more doable than 100. 99 bottles of beer on the wall...


"the Great One is denied"