More C4

The real test of a medical unit's combat readiness comes not in their mock platoon marches or field training exercises nor in their mastering of the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) classes. It doesn't come in the twenty-four hour hutment confinement due to training being cancelled on account of freak San Antonio snow. It's not even whether they can go to the communal showers and strip naked and wash and rinse all while avoiding prolonged eye contact next to one another which successfully tells whether they can successfully carry stretchers through mine fields together. The real test of a real unit full of real men comes in the commode.

An Army Strong platoon in today's Army of One can sit down, relax, and watch each other go number two. That's the short of it. That's the test of a unit's combat grit. And in light of that profound military truth, we, collectively, failed. The test as it was ingeniously crafted comes from the bathroom's design as all the stalls, which are for whatever reason already spaced unusually tightly together giving you little in the way of elbow room, were, to perhaps make you forget you had nowhere to place your elbows, also freakishly close to the opposing row of stalls immediately across the way. And lest you pause to think too long about the fact that you could probably touch knees with the guy across from you were he to be a particularly tall individual, you realize that in fact you could touch his knees -- and perhaps gently caress them -- because there are no doors to any of the stalls. There is nothing but open space seperating you from the guy and white cinder block walls of the toilet across from you. A real hero -- I believe the Army was suggesting -- will sit across from his battle buddy, stare him deeply in the eye, and engage in friendly banter while taking a dump. He may even whistle a patriotic tune. Discuss the latest tourniquet application techniques maybe. Thumb wrestle. Whatever exactly is supposed to take place while two dudes respectively sit across from each other in a race to finish their business first, the end result is inevitably a crisp salute and a new level of unit cohesiveness.

Finding this to be the worse of two options were the other option to be small bowel obstruction followed by colonic perforation from never using the restroom again, we collectively came to an unspoken modus operandi. As there were four stalls in each row of the livestock pen the first person would use one of the stalls closest to the far wall while the next person would use the stall furthest from the far wall. Each successive soldier could use neighboring stalls if facing the same direction and feeling friendly, but this was known to be discouraged. Under no conditions was it acceptable to sit immediately across or immediately diagonal to another toilet user, and it was punishable by death if you accidentally sat on someone else's lap. If you were to arrive and find the maximum occupancy of four out of eight stalls in use you would politely return later, you didn't need to go that bad. If you did need to go that bad, congratulations you now know four people who hate your guts. In the end it proved successful -- I never had to watch what God never intended for us to watch -- but our esprit de corps suffered as we lacked that I've-seen-you-poo level of commitment that only veteran, battle tested units ever possess. We may have technically passed the training but we failed each other. C4's most dangerous landmines were truthfully not the literal landmines but the I-don't-want-you-looking-at-me-like-that landmines deep inside ourselves.

We were then forced to do jumping jacks in gas masks and hazmat suits, which -- coincidentally -- is a good way to induce fainting and general claustrophobia-related freaking out.

A Series of Poor Decisions

I have made... a series of poor decisions.

I could of had a V-8! *Bonk!*

Anyway.

I decided to pursue some research. Expand some horizons. Advance our collective knowledge. Enter endless amounts of data into an unwieldly sized Excel spreadsheet. It has, unfortunately, like the velociraptors of Jurassic Park, now escaped my control and started opening doors with its razor clawed hands. My research block ended a week ago, and yet I still find myself researching. I will still be researching next block no doubt, and likely researching to my grave. I did not imagine that I would like the whole empirical approach to problem solving -- much preferring the impulsive assertion approach instead -- and the rigorous testing of hypotheses never sounded like much fun to me, but I was curious and so I did it anyway. Mistake! Hours and hours and hours later, and I still have not effectively answered what the risk factors for Clostridium difficile infections in thermal burn patients are. In fact, now knowing how arbitrary the research process is, I am inclined to believe we will never find out. I will have an answer certainly, but that answer will mean beans to me. Plenty to the people who read the research perhaps -- ooh flouroquinolones do lead to C. diff! -- but I will know the secret. Research is madness. Truly it hasn't been that bad, I did get great delight from learning computer shortcuts that made my data gathering more efficient. I like to think I have made "data monkey" into a respectable vocation.

I also decided to assemble my IKEA bed frame a few nights back. At about 2200 hours. Unfortunately it took much longer than the anticipated two and a half hours I expected, and so two days later and some sleeping on the couch I was still assembling the dang thing. I would like to say once assembled, seven or eight hours in total, I had accidentally assembled a magnificent gazebo a la the Simpsons where Homer builds a barn instead of a pool, but all I had in the end was a simple wooden bed frame. With drawers. A simple wooden bed frame with drawers that I now had curiously hostile feelings towards.

And then I decided to use the restroom at work. Upon doing so my pager dumped off my belt and into the toilet. I will leave it up to the imagination what was in said toilet.

Good night ladies and gentleman, you've all been great!