Other than buying a new car, signing a lease and moving into a house with Gamecock and Hokie, seeing SmellyCrotch every now and then, augment was very uneventful and kind of boring. Kailua turned out to be heaven on Earth. When I die, I hope heaven is Kailua and a golf course with a caddy who is a hot blonde with huge knockers and pours me Jack and Cokes until the sun goes down. When I make a million dollars I hope to one day retire to Kailua, Hawaii. I love it there, and will eternally yearn to return.
I’d catch myself thinking, “I can’t wait for the boat to get back so I’m not so bored…” I would immediately slap myself for saying that, because as has been chronicled, I hate that submarine. When I wasn’t in school, or skipping school altogether. I’d wake up on the couch (where I had slept every night until I had the money to go out and buy a bed) and stare out the window for an hour before deciding to go to the beach or golfing. Rough life…
Hokie and Gamecock had to go underway, and that’s when me and Pips got to be good buddies. He needed a place to crash, Romy and he had washed out of Dive School and were looking for something to do. Once I got a bed, I told Pips he could come and crash on the couch that I was previously using.
March rolled into April and the first three weeks of April were relaxing, good and boring. April 11 was the start of my last school, R-114 school. Once that was over, the following week was every day at the beach and on April 22nd, 2005 I finally got on a plane to head back to Minnesota on leave for the first time since leaving to report to Squadron One. I had wanted to take leave for my first Christmas out in PH, because when I first got there, I was oddly homesick. I was in a tropical paradise and I missed home! I was quickly talked out of it by the EDMC and was away from MN nearly two years before returning.
Leave was highlighted by shopping, dining and partying up at my mom and dad’s cabin in Alexandria. Fairly boring until it was time to fly back. On May 1 I flew out of MSP on a plane to fly to Vegas. I got to Vegas and it was later in the evening and was waiting for the gate information while on a couple hours layover. The gate number never got posted. Finally, I realized that my flight was about to leave in like half an hour. I decided to look around for some information. I found out that flights to Hawaii depart from McCarran at their auxiliary gate. It was a ways away, and the trams weren’t running at that hour. So I started running…in flip-flops down to the international gates. When I got there, the lady told me that the flight had already left and that they had called my name numerous times. I was pissed, but I had no one to be pissed at but my own dumb-ass self.
After rescheduling a flight for the next morning, I caught a cab downtown, grabbed a cheap hotel room at the plaza and crashed. I was too tired and crabby to gamble and just caught a couple hours rest before catching a cab back to the terminal to catch my flight back to Honolulu.
When I got back I thought I was going to be in deep shit. I went back to the squadron office, prepped and ready for an ass chewing. I found the squadron yeoman, who used to be on my boat and was good buddies with Chuck. We were never friends, but he knew me (or simply new of my reputation) via Chuck. I got back Tuesday afternoon and was supposed to be back Monday AM. I asked this yeoman if he’d gotten my message about what had happened to me in Vegas. He just looked at me and smiled, “Don’t sweat it man, I took care of ya.” I was so relieved I could have kissed the guy. He noticed that I wasn’t back from leave on time and covered for me. That’s the kind of brotherhood that I miss in the Navy.
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