So, I’ve been assigned to a new training squadron for about a week now, for a grueling 28 day course on how to use Excel, Powerpoint, and a telephone to tell plumbers and AC repairmen where to go (gotta do my part to defend Democracy), and compared to my old squadron, I’m not generally impressed with the airmen here.
All of my other complaints aside (It shouldn’t take half an hour to form up and do accountability in the morning. It should take 15 minutes. The few people who didn’t show up early enough to sign in on time can go talk to the Sergeants later to be accounted for), I’m specifically here to whine about the upkeep of the dorms. On the weekend, the squadron posts airmen to act as Dorm Guards for 8 hour shifts. Not to perform Entry Control, not to keep females and males out of eachothers’ bays, but specifically “to make sure no more airmen put holes in the walls.”
I don’t even know why or how people put holes in the walls, but they’re not talking about trying to hang a picture. There are two such holes in my dorm room alone, and it looks like someone was playing with a hockey stick. More in the hallway. I have no idea how that happened, and I’m afraid to ask, lest I get some of the stupid on me.
Anyhow, the sergeants are pretty laid back about actual room inspections. Mostly they’re checking to see that all the proper doors are locked (door to the room, doors to our closets), that there are no bad odors, and that nothing is on fire. That’s cool. My room mate graduated and moved out this morning, and I was looking through the fridge to see what he left behind. Hot Pockets! Capri Sun! Sprite!
No wait… an empty Hot Pockets box. An empty Capri Sun box. An empty… bottle of Sprite? Is this a bad joke at my expense? Grabbing a trash bag (appropriately, from a box of trash bags he left behind, hooray for hand-me-down sundry supplies), I sacked up this stuff, and after throwing out 3/4 of a jar of salsa that, to be honest, I was never going to touch just because I rarely eat chips in my room, I discovered that something pink had been spilled at some previous point and left to dry, and that the freezer compartment had about an inch thick layer of ice in it from never ever being defrosted.
So I cleaned out the fridge, wiped it down with wet wipes he also left behind, and unplugged it for defrosting. I have since spent all day out in town using the free wi-fi at this very nice diner off base (that’s just because I can’t get DSL internet in my dorm, and because the food here is quite good).
Tonight my to-do list includes finding a vacuum cleaner and vacuuming my room. Just because everyone else in the squadron, the sergeants included, are quite alright with the airmen living like complete slobs does not mean I am going to do the same. Tommorow I should only need to worry about ironing my uniform, shining my boots, and watching some anime before the GI Party where a hundred or so airmen will mill about pretending to clean the hallway for half an hour.