Their just desserts

Today, I settle all family business. I steel my expression as I lace up my boots, the pair I wear only for certain work. I draw a long breath and close my home’s door behind me. The sun has risen; I’d better hurry. One last thought runs through my head: to cancel my plans and go back to bed. But I shake my head. I’ve a job. It’s what any red-blooded American would do.

My little Toyota wouldn’t do for my plans today, so I’ve rented a van. I needed one with a brand-new suspension and special racks in the rear, so I couldn’t get it from the likes of U-Haul. You can’t shake this kind of ammunition around much, you see. And maybe I’m overdoing it, but I specified a temperature-controlled vehicle. One wrong turn, after all, and someone would have a lot of cleanup.

Part of why I need to start off at dawn is to encounter certain people before they set out for the day—yes, it’s justice for the cheaters. My first stop is a roofer, right in town, whom we’d almost hired to clean algae off our roof with a spray cleaner that, it turned out, we could buy at Home Depot ourselves. To demonstrate, he’d sprayed some on a shingle and said we’d see the difference by morning. We didn’t. I get him as he’s loading his truck for the day, and the look on his face says he remembers me. He won’t forget this day.

Two others come next. One is a tile man we needed for a relatively mundane regrout and caulk job in the bathroom. The other, a chimney guy we needed for a cleaning and a chimney cap. Both had looked at their respective jobs at hand and said the same thing: “Ohhhhhhh, boooooyyyyy”—contractor-speak for “My kid is in college.” But I time my stops well and take both unawares, five miles apart, before their crews show up. There’s no mistaking what I have for them today, and next time they’ll know better. If there is a next time.

My next stop, naturally is the office. None of the security guards would ever suspect why I’m here today, on what’s supposed to be my day off. One even holds the door for me; I’m carrying a lot of weight, after all. Out of their sight, I don the full-face ski mask. I’m in luck, for my targets are all together in their usual conference room. The element of surprise, a few well-aimed shots and I’m done. One almost reaches the phone but doesn't make it. The stains might never come out.

A half-hour later I’m in Manhattan, where the first of the few remaining Presidential candidates is speaking. I can’t possibly get close; besides the crowd, there are Secret Service agents everywhere. Which is why I brought along my, um, “absentee ballot,” one you can’t get just anywhere. It’s a modern form of a medieval catapult, spring-loaded the same way but with a variable scope—and an effective half-mile range. I position the weapon slowly, precisely, and hit home on the first shot; I’ve seen American Sniper, after all. The crowd goes wild.

Ah, you’ve guessed that I’m merely indulging in one of my little fantasies, and I appreciate your patience. Have no fear, my feet are firmly planted in reality. After all, how could I possibly make, carry and deliver so many cream pies?

Shop till they drop

Zero hundred hours was quickly approaching, but we were ready. Still, we had a few moments for one last check. Flak jackets were a given, but we needed plenty more. Weapons, ammo, optics, navigational equipment, first-aid kit…. Elena glanced at me and nodded with a faint smile just visible from beneath her helmet. It seemed that was everything. Oh, one more thing: The credit cards.

We emerged from the side of the building in our new mine-resistant, ambush-protected all-terrain vehicle. Its V-shaped hull and independent suspension were just the ticket for such operations, though the ATV cost most of the money we were saving for Andrew’s college tuition. Especially the requirement that its specs match those intended for use in Afghanistan. But hey—we couldn’t mess around. In 30 seconds, 29, 28…we were heading in. With all our preparation plus a little bit of luck, we’d make that back and more with all the savings that lay in wait for the survivors.

It’s not called Black Friday for nothing.

With me as the driver, Elena was gunner. She peered through her scope as a line, blocks-long, came into view beneath the appropriately designed Target logo. “This is it!” she shouted over the rumbling of the engine. Fifteen seconds till the store opened. The shoppers took cover and cocked their weapons. One had an RPG, but Elena spotted her before she could load a grenade. “Nice going!” I shouted.

“She always illegally parks in Handicapped, so she’s had it coming,” my darling replied.

From the rest of the line, nothing they had was a match for our vehicle. Gunfire erupted from every crevice and landscaped hedge, but nothing penetrated our armor. Three, two, one…the doors opened. But instead of the wave of shoppers, in we went with a crash of flying glass and twisted metal. I steered right toward our first stop—where the real danger would begin. We’d eventually, after all, have to leave the safety of the ATV.

The store was already filling with smoke, so we’d have to use Bluetooth-enabled GPS at the ear to guide us to the right aisle. The red uniforms were friendly, we knew; still, we wouldn’t put it past the enemy to wear the same colors and, through the smoke, offer help as they aimed their heat-seeking automatics. I tapped Elena’s shoulder, for it was time. We exited the vehicle.

We knew our targets and ran down different sides of the lengthwise aisle toward our respective shelves. Ah…I’d found my first item already. It wasn’t every day I found a 6-ounce tube of Colgate Total Whitening toothpaste for $1.29! My second stop, at the next aisle over: Suave Professionals Shampoo Plus Conditioner, $2.09 for a 32-ounce container. It lay dead ahead, nobody else in the aisle, but therein lay the trap. I almost blundered right over a mine—a COD, for Customer Obliteration Device—that someone had painted the same color scheme as the vinyl floor tiles. I grabbed the heaviest thing handy, a big bottle of mouthwash, and threw it toward the detonator. The explosion was deafening.

“Eddie...are you okay?” Elena was calling. Still dizzy, I grabbed the last shampoo standing and yelled back. Time to regroup. Along the way I snatched my third goal, a 12-pack of twin-blade razor cartridges for $6.99, and we almost ran into one another.

“I got the white-cotton shoelaces—49 cents,” Elena reported above the blaring of the fire alarm, “and a box of six handkerchiefs for $1.99.” We had time for a quick high-five.

“Did you….”

“Affirmative!” she said, producing a Totes automatic umbrella, with case, that was selling for $5.99. “We might need it sooner if the sprinklers go off, so I got two.”

“Good thinking.”

The next five minutes were crucial, for the shoppers we hadn’t flatted beneath our continuous-track wheels now took positions behind us. Worse, they headed for the same aisles with a vengeance—and reloaded weapons. It was time for some smoke, so my bride and I together lobbed a few M-18 smoke grenades. “Let’s go!” I shouted.

A 28-ounce bottle of ketchup for a buck twenty-nine, a 12-ounce Starbucks Pike Place ground coffee for $4.99 and the best prize of all: eight-ounce yogurts, three for a dollar. The list went on, but it was too soon to claim victory. We were at the opposite corner of the building from the ATV, and that smoke wasn’t going to hang around till we returned. I sighed—we would have to leave without the 99-cent LED Christmas lights and the $2.99 angel slated for the top of the tree.

Gunfire erupted through the smoke, but it was nowhere near us. We’d taken another route to the registers, past the electronics department manned by one idle, gum-chewing clerk. Who wanted any of that? A few more steps, and we peered around to spot the registers. One was free! Elena emptied our pouches onto the counter as I watched our backs. One sniper was a little too obvious in his perch atop the greeting-card aisle.

“Would you like to donate a dollar to Operation Gratitude?” the cashier recited from behind her gas mask. Elena nodded, and swiped her credit card. We grabbed our bags, hurled two more smoke grenades and, moments later, were safely back in the ATV without too much further bloodshed.

Later that evening, our vehicle stowed safely in hiding, we celebrated our triumph with grim acknowledgment of the weeks to come. We’d made it alive through another Black Friday. Still, we’d barely get an hour of sleep before our next objective: Small-Business Saturday. So many bargains, so little time.

Doing my bit for international diplomacy

Senior year is well under way for our college-student daughter, Katie. And from what Elena and I can tell, the study-abroad trend that proves such a rich educational experience hasn’t taken hold in this college household. I guess we’ll have to learn some other way how to go broke under dual monetary systems.

Nobody was talking about rounding out my college experience once I enrolled full-time. With a 2.59-mile drive to campus from where I spent my entire youth, what was to round? But when I look back on the break between high school and college, I guess my Asian vacation qualifies.

I was barely older than Katie is today when I decided to take four weeks’ leave and visit Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Singapore while I was in the Coast Guard, stationed on Guam. I’d saved a few bucks that I figured would do. I had my passport and somehow learned enough about getting visas. I even had a few notions of where to stay, if not what to do—at least in the first two destinations. And I had all my flights arranged.

Arranged, that is, in the only way you could arrange government flights. MAC flights—the acronym stood for Military Airlift Command—were a way military personnel could hitch along on flights headed for another air base. They came and went when they felt like, on no pre-announced schedule. And as long as you were okay with spending, oh, six to thirty-six hours hanging out in a terminal that didn’t even have a candy machine, you could fly thousands of miles for ten bucks.

From Guam, it was a short hop to Japan once I got a seat, actually some canvas stretched out on a frame, on a mail flight. My plan, or what passed for one, was to get from Yokota Air Base to Tokyo. I’d stay at a U.S. military-run hotel; I had the address, if not a reservation. I would just head for the subway and….

Wouldn’t you know it, people spoke a completely different language over there.

English has taken over much of the world by now, but the same wasn’t true in 1981. Another fact not yet true, even today: I’m willing to try any food. I couldn’t have guessed that in the following year, on a dare to the class from an anthropology professor, I’d eat a grasshopper from a jar. Because once I hit Tokyo, with no way to order from a Japanese menu, I quickly accepted that American fast food was the way to go.

Somehow, I navigated the subway system. I resisted the urge to teach those primitives how to properly shove their way onto a train, but only because my growling stomach would have drowned out their complaints. Once I reached what I understood to be my stop, I needed lunch. I looked around. Exactly what did someone who spoke English look like?

Across the street and down the block stood a white-haired man. I stepped gingerly into the street, since cars there went the wrong way, and approached the gentleman, who didn’t budge from his position. “Excuse me, sir, but do you speak—”

Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice I was speaking to a life-size Colonel Sanders statue in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. And a short while later, my stomach amply full, I decided Japan was an okay place after all.

But my studying abroad had only begun. Having eaten fried food for lunch, I realized I needed something more nutritious for dinner. So, after careful research, I settled on a McDonald’s. This wasn’t going to be easy, notwithstanding a digestive system weeks into adulthood. I wanted a burger, make it two, with no cheese, ketchup, pickles or onions—everything put on McDonald’s burgers back home. Plus fries and a shake. Would you please, I asked my bilingual hotel clerk, write all this down in Japanese?

It went smoothly—at least in the few seconds before the “What is…hamburger?” question. But once I put my drawing skills to work, the clerk understood and wrote out my order. Which I didn’t need because I found a cashier who was delighted to use her English. In the end, I got almost exactly what I was after: burgers with nothing on them. The world was becoming as small as my mind.

I indeed learned more than how to eat like a traditional low-class American in a culinary paradise. From running out of cash in Okinawa before I could get to the Philippines or Singapore, I learned how to plan spending before my next trip. And from having to run back to my Osan, South Korea, hotel before the 9 p.m. curfew, when the soldiers began patrolling with orders to shoot, I learned that I'd lived something of a sheltered life. Something in my time in the service, including this four-weeks vacation, mattered once I hit full-time college: I earned a half-semester of credit for “life experience.”

I suppose students who’ve studied abroad are later asked to write about their travails—what they liked and what they didn’t. What would I write, for instance, about what I’d have done differently?

That’s an easy one. I’d have gotten those burgers without mustard, too.

Do as I say, as I say you’re doo

Every now and then, someone asks about my military service. I’m glad I was able to serve. My four-plus years in the Coast Guard, during the post-Vietnam Cold-War, saw nothing you’d call “action.” Yet they made me the man I am today. Even boot camp alone, at 17, taught me a lesson you can’t get just anywhere.

The lesson of those first nine weeks in Cape May? It’s a simple one: There’s no limit to what can happen in a job when you can’t easily quit or be fired.

Most of us quickly learned that whatever we were told to do, to do it precisely each and every time. This meant we learned how to swap a deck, clean a bathroom (called a “head” even off ship) till it was spotless, make a bed wrinkle-free (the kids love that one to this day) and groom ourselves impeccably. Okay, so maybe I forgot one.

When our “company” of about fifty men and women screwed up, the usual way Chief Smith, our company commander, punished us was to make us run laps or do endless push-ups—you know, things I like to do for fun today. But what I remember most vividly was how guys were punished for their individual transgressions. I chuckle now when I look back on them. But at the time? I chuckled then, too. None of the best stuff happened to me, after all.

Take the fellow who, when told to remove off all “jewelry” before leaving the locker room for the gym, decided to leave on his watch. Heck, I’ve never considered any watch I’ve owned to be jewelry. But I, like most others, took it off just in case. So as we did our calisthenics in the gym for the next half-hour, the guy with the watch had to run round and round the gym’s perimeter with the arm in the watch held high. “I’ve got my watch on!” he chanted over and over the whole time. “I’ve got my watch on!”

Another fellow recruit decided he’d get in Chief Smith’s good graces, presuming they existed, by sticking as close to him as possible and being the quickest and loudest at replying, “Sir, yes, sir!” to every command. (Yes, the word “Sir” or “Ma’am” had to begin and end every sentence spoken to anyone but a fellow recruit.) His reward for sucking up? Being ordered to circle for a half-hour around the Chief, his arms extended outward, shouting “I’m a satellite—beep beep!”

Two guys from a different company (new victims arrived every week) apparently had gotten into a fistfight, which had occurred another day before we arrived at the track. The part I saw, while we practiced our drills on the quad, was their penalty. For several laps the two jogged side-by-side on the track, shadow-boxing into the air as they went along and having one repetitive dialogue. “I like you,” one recited as commanded. “I like you, too,” came the reply.

Not that it was all marching and exercises in those weeks before we graduated boot camp and my enlistment became, with exceptions, more like a regular job. Sometimes, in fact, recruits got to lie down in the middle of the day. Only you wouldn’t call it leisure. We saw it often, with one particular company whose barracks we marched past on our way to class. In response to some act of disrespect—maybe something as simple as dust found during an inspection—it was a form of discipline company commanders liked to call the “dying cockroach.” Supine position, arms and legs in the air and flailing, the whole bit…everything but the giant shoe that steps down from above.

Of course, there was a point: the notion of tearing people down to build them back stronger. Such merciless antics united us against a common enemy, the company commander, even as we came to form a team. Some of us, within weeks, might be boarding boats of drug runners off the Florida coast. Would you want someone unvetted at your side with a loaded gun?

Once, as we neared graduation, we even could hear the pride in Chief Smith’s voice when he spoke with us about what to expect after basic training. We learned something else: He wasn’t a bad guy.

But it took effort to arrive at such perspective. What it took was a little imagination, of somehow picturing Chief Smith as a young, misbehaving Seaman Recruit Smith. Who’d, for instance, left the covers a bit rumpled on his bed.

On his back. His arms and legs flailing in the noonday sun.