Saturday From Hades

(The Man That Made Saturday Possible)

It's one thing to fly the overnighter. I can handle that. We start on Friday at 6:00 P.M., and end Saturday at 10:00 A.M. But then... well... There is all this buzz about scheduling private missions on Saturdays, and I got stuck with a 5 hour. It started at 11 A.M., that meant it went til 4. I groaned when I discovered this. That is pure torture.


So... I flew it. Then discovered that I was very tired, and didn't think that leaving was in my best interest. So I decided that I would stay for a bit.


That was a bad decision.


About 20 minutes later, I found myself enveloped in a project with Rachel and Jon. We were refitting the Odyssey simulator with paint, and changing a few things that the set director thought needed to be changed. One of these projects was tearing a random thing that protruded from the ceiling down.


Apparently the instructions given by our boss entailed only the painting portion of this task. I came in later than that instruction, so I was doing what I'd been asked to. I was ami ripping... Ok, bashing the protruding "box" on the ceiling with a baseball bat when whatever it was attached to put a hole in the ceiling made of sheetrock.


"Damnit," I muttered under my breath. Jon and Rachel looked at me. I had sworn. That meant something was wrong.


First off... Who makes a ceiling of sheetrock. That is just lazy, cheap, and stupid. Secondly, why is this box here. It makes it so the operations officer cannot see the viewscreen. I was throwing around these rants (expletives excluded), and then realized that the box was hanging above the ceiling. I decided I could pull it down.


I reached up and pulled with all my might, and a small portion of the ceiling came down on top of me. I bashed my elbow on the station below me, and swore again.


It was done. The box was down... But now I knew we weren't going to be out by 10:30, as instructed. I decided that I would call my boss, Vic, and ask him to reset the alarm for 3:00 that morning, so that we didn't set it off while we repaired the ceiling, then got everything painted.


IT WAS A BUGGER. But we repaired the ceiling, we also got the ship painted. Jon left at 12:00. Rachel and I finished painting the rest of the ship. I got most of the roof. Jon had touched most of it up. Rachel and I finished the stations, and the grate at the back of the ship. We had the ship put back together, and we were gone at 1:56.


My boss though. He was furious when he came to reset the alarm. There was smoke streaming from his ears. His frustration could be heard as his voice shook with every word. I've been yelled at, spat at, sworn at, and glared at by this man. I knew everything would be fine once it was all taken care of- but at the moment, it was obvious that he was going to try to kill me if I got too close. I tried to take all of the blame. Mostly because I pulled the ceiling out, and I had been there, and I really wanted him to put the blame on me, and leave Jon and Rachel out of it. I feel I'm on his good side, and I wanted him to be pissed with me, and then it'd all be better later. I think the plan kind of worked.


However, I was instructed that I shouldn't apologize if it isn't my fault. "I'm venting," he said, "Just tell me you are sorry I'm frustrated, and leave me at that. There isn't anything you can do about it. It annoys me that you try to place this all on yourself. It's not your fault. Things happen. I'm just frustrated. I said to paint. Painting doesn't involve ripping off portions of ceiling. It never has. I don't know where people get off thinking that they can just do whatever. This isn't your fault. Just shut up, and listen to me vent."


I tried. He is so long winded. I thought if I annoyed him, he might leave in frustration. "I'm sorry about my birth, that was an unfortunate incident," I told him.


Aggravated, he left. Instructing me to stay til the job was finished.


It was a long night.


Needless to say. Life is back to normal. The continuum is where it should be, and the stars are back in their normal orbit. Thanks to Rachel and Jon for putting up with my mistake. And thanks to Vic for not killing me. :)


TENDER MERCIES


1) My friend David from Fresno is here visiting this week. I am so glad that he was able to come and chill. We toured temple square, and it's just been a fun day. Hopefully he enjoys his visit.
2) Megan comes home this week!
3) I got some good time spent with my sister Marquelle today. She is going off to college soon, so it was really good to have some one-on-one time with her before we both vacate the area.


That's it for the weekend. Here goes a long week. Hopefully the man at the top of this page stays out of it :P


--Brack