Amanda Love...

For the past week or two...I've lost track of the days, I've been working over in another section handling rotary-wing ops. It involves a lot more interaction with large groups of people, many of them armed and dangerous, many of them beautiful women, some beautiful women with weapons, a few a**holes...yada yada yada. Well I've also been working different hours. Before I used to get up at 0400 and my workday would start around 0700 but now I'm up at 0200 and my workday starts at 0430. Needless to say I'm just a little slow first thing in the morning.

At about 0500 the other morning, I was still longing for the soft embrace of my Egyptian cotton sheets and memory foam mattress when the secure phone rang with an urgent request to contact a soldier in the facility. I dutifully set the phone down and yelled out into the mass of people milling in the area, "I need Amanda Love! Amanda Love come to the front counter!"

A few quizzical looks only served to frustrate me, perhaps I simply wasn't being loud enough. So I yelled out even louder, "I NEED AMANDA LOVE! AMANDA LOVE COME HERE RIGHT NOW IF YOU'RE HERE!"

I picked up the phone to report to the girl on the other end that she was out of luck but she couldn't hear me because she and everyone in her office (I was on speakerphone evidently) was laughing so hard. When she finally caught her breath, she asked me in a sweet little drawl, "Now honey, do you really need a man to love?" and fell into further hysterics.

It took me a second but as soon as it hit me, I laughed and swore to the girl that I would have my revenge. Naturally, everyone in the section insists on retelling the story to anyone who will listen and almost without fail the person shakes their head and makes a comment about how I need to watch the Simpsons.

Ahhhh, with friends like these...