Bacon, Boxers, and Bad Decisions

Hey, all.

Alright, so here's the deal. This is the very first post, so I'll try to get you guys up to speed on what's been going on. Here's a brief synopsis of my life so far:

>grew up in Michigan 'till I was 15
>forced to move to Texas halfway through Freshman year of high school
>"MY LIFE IS OVEEEEER"
>meet new friends in Dallas, move into bigger house
>"MY LIFE IS AWESOOOOOOME"
>leave Texas, move back to hometown in Michigan right before Senior year
>Rip Van Winkle ain't got shit on me
>meet awesome girl
>go off to college
>drop out of college
>lose awesome girl
>join Army
>become a medic
>move to Fort Drum in upstate New York
>spend 1 month doing paperwork
>get handed an M16 and some tourniquets, spend a year in Afghanistan
>come back to U.S.
>start blog

Any questions? Excellent, moving on, then.

So I just got back from deployment last week, and I've gotta say, things have been pretty weird. It's almost unreal to be back in the first world after having spent so much time living sans basic comforts. I find myself being surprised by really small details, these days. For example, being able to cook my own bacon.

Most soldiers, when asked, will tell you that the very first thing they want to do after a year-long deployment is to either a) drink copious amounts of alcohol; or b) sleep with as many willing partners as they can find in a 20-mile radius. Often, they'll tell you they want to do both.

But not me. See, me, I like bacon. Bacon doesn't make you throw up in the morning. Bacon will never sleep with you and not call you again. Bacon will always be there for you. Plus, it's gender-neutral, and thus enjoyable by all the boys and girls.

So what's the first thing I did when I got home? I went to Wal-Mart, bought myself a frying pan and a pound of delicious bacon, stripped myself of pants (I hate pants--we'll get to that later) and began filling my room with the sweet, musky aroma of sultry bacon strips.

Now picture this scene: you have just returned from a 48-hour journey from a country where half the people want to kill you, and the other half want to sell you something. You're carrying a year's worth of possessions in a rucksack, a duffel bag, and a backpack. Fighting both mental and physical exhaustion, you trudge your way up the stairs of a strange new barracks building and swing your head hopelessly from one corridor to the next, searching for a sign pointing you towards your room. After a few minutes of fatigued and aimless wandering, you stagger to your door and fumble out your keys. As you finally manage to heave your bedraggled body through the entrance, you are greeted by a profoundly strange sight: a rather tall bald man, wearing nothing but his boxers, holding a scalding-hot frying pan with several strips of mouth-watering, greasy, delicious bacon.

This in and of itself would have been strange enough for my poor roommate. But he had the misfortune of scaring the living piss out of me. This promptly caused me to drop the pan on my (quite exposed and sockless) foot, burning myself and spilling piping-hot bacon grease all over the floor. This in turn caused me to erupt in a constant stream of foul words and curses, accompanied by much one-footed hopping and pained howling--in addition to the grease-slicked floor and my state of undress.

Yet throughout all of this, my roommate merely unslung his rucksack, pulled out some (rather conveniently available) paper towels, and cleaned up the mess. Then, without a word, he left me standing half-naked and scalded, and trudged dutifully over to his room, where he dropped his packs, lay down on the bed, and immediately passed the fuck out.

And that's how I met my roommate, Turbo. Timmy Turbo, to be exact.

(I know, right?)

So there I was, stunned and scalded, my bacon gone and my boxers slightly singed by splatters of searing hot grease. And the whole scene made me realize just how much I'd missed the little things in life during this past year.

Like cooking bacon in the buff.