I had transferred from my first ship to an advanced electronics school in San Diego. I was living in the barracks on the first deck right across from the head. Since I was a fleet returnee, I was able to get a room with only one roommate, a guy who was rarely there. In essence, I had the room to myself.
At that point in my life I was a single sailor out to see the world; but since I was temporarily unable to actually visit a foreign country, I tried to at least date someone from a far-off land. At the time, I was working my way through Indochina. I'd already dated a Vietnamese lady and had acquired a taste for Vietnamese food, particularly pho, which is a beef/rice noodle soup usually spiced up pretty hot. The rule for pho was if you didn't have to wipe your forehead and blow your nose while eating it, you weren't doing it right. I'd eaten pho a bunch of times with no distress, even as spicy as it was. My twenty-one-year-old colon was in peak condition, able to withstand whatever I tossed at it (except for a bout of Samagoo Squirts in P.I., that is). That being said, I wasn't dating Vietnamese anymore; I'd taken a cue from Tricky Dick and snuck across the border to Laos.
The girl I was seeing was nice and we enjoyed each other's company. I enjoyed meeting her family and hearing about their country. I also enjoyed the food. I ate all kinds of Laotian food and loved it all, no matter how spicy. The hotter, the better.
Then the girl learned I liked pho. She invited me to her home and said she was going to fix me the Laotian version of pho, promising I would forget all about the Vietnamese version. Oh, if I only knew what I soon faced, because, Dear Reader, I haven't -- nor will I ever -- forget.
I ate with her and her family. We all had the same food. The soup was delicious and as good or better to the pho I'd had. In modern terms, I'd compare it to a 2 Live Crew song -- as nasty as it wanted to be. Hot, spicy, with meatballs made from ground critter of some type, it was just good. I ate it all up and licked the bowl.
Got back to the barracks, hit the rack about eleven, no trouble noted, no indication whatsoever that my own personal Day That Will Live In Infamy was but a couple of hours away.
0300: I awoke in a panic. I did not wake up and gradually feel the need to go -- I was unconscious one second and running for my life the next. I shot out of my rack, opened the door, crossed the hallway, and ran into the head and straight to the first shitter in the line. I was just able to get my skivvies down before Mount Shitsuvius erupted.
As the first attack wave hit the beach, I knew this battle would be epic. I sensed right away the presence of chemical weapons in my poo-goo, because my brown eye burned like Dante's inferno.
The duration of poo-goo shooting out my poo-flue was inconsequential; the problem was the incendiary chemical agent now coating my brown eye rendered my tender touch-hole into an eternal flame of non-stop burning agony. It burned so bad I couldn't help but moan as I gritted my teeth. I did NOT want to attract undo attention (translation: any attention at all), but my ring of fire burned so intensely that I was moaning louder and louder, totally against my fast-fading will.
I don't remember how long the Mount Shitsuvius eruption lasted; what I do remember is that when the flow stopped, my asshole burned just as bad, if not worse, than it did when the first flow of molten poo-goo lava spewed.
The barracks had a firewatch -- that is, a junior sailor whose job is to patrol the barracks and keep them from burning down. The firewatch on duty in my barracks had heard my SOS moan and was now outside the line of shitters listening to my fire rage uncontrollably. He asked if I was okay. Hell no, I wasn't okay, but I couldn't do anything but moan a few syllables of blather. I wiped (no help, no friggin' help at all) and burst out of my stall.
I must have startled him because all he could say was, "Shit, man, what died in you?"
I HAD to cool the raging inferno. I had to have relief and I had to have it RIGHT THEN. I ran into the showers to the first shower valve I saw and turned the cold water on full stream.
The shower was your standard fifteen-man open shower unit: no curtains, no stalls, just a big room with fifteen showerheads, some soap holders, and a drain in the middle. I didn't care a whit at this point: I broke myself open like a shotgun and pointed my burning breech of a touchhole to the nozzle and spread my cheeks with both hands.
The size of the shower room produced a decent pitch of echo, decent enough to amplify my moans of pain and attract the firewatch from the barracks next door. Now I had two firewatches standing there witnessing my most intense pain and embarrassment. Could it get any worse?
The burning sensation let up, but just enough for me to lower my moaning volume. I had to get the resins/oils/whatever that incendiary chemical was on my asshole off my asshole, and quickly.
I looked at the soap holder in the shower -- nobody had left a bar of soap. Damn! Shit, man, I was desperate! Screw it: spying some soap goo left over in one of the soap holders, I used my fingernails to scrape a wad and smear it over my burning battlefield. I mixed the soap wad with the shower water and made a lather that, thankfully, began to sooth my aching, burning beast bung.
My moans began to decrease in volume and I was able to calm myself a bit in order to take stock and formulate a shitrep. My skivvies were still in the stall where I'd abandoned them (no chemical agents released therein), my t-shirt was soaked as I was in way too much pain to remove it before I broke open my breech to the nozzle stream, and I had these two asshole firewatches staring at me with blank looks, resembling a herd of cows staring at a passing train. I looked at them and quite calmly -- and rightfully, I might add -- asked then both to use a little discretion and keep the last half hour's events a discrete memory.
Thing One kid asks me, "You mean, you don't want us to tell anybody about what just happened, right?"
"Yeah," I replied. "That's about the gist of discretion and all that."
Thing Two asshole didn't miss a beat. "Fuck that, dude," he shot back. "That shit was way too funny! I'm tellin' everybody!"
I hope his next ship sinks under him.
