A Joke is a Joke...but Stupid is not Funny
(From Susan B. R. in Athens)
It's a clear ordinary day on Anytown A.F.B and me and my friend are just tooling around the base walking and talking about girlstuff. "Hey, I said, Check it out. The AP's are converging over there like it was AP recognition day and the first one there gets a million bucks!" "Rachel puts her arm in mine and pulls on my arm so hard I felt like a magnet was in my arm and the magnets on the AP's cars must have the pulling strength of the universe! The next thing I know I'm in the midst of the bedlam and someone next to us says someone called in a bomb threat!"Rachel" says, "Watch this." Before I could utter a word Rachel says "Yeah we called it in." At that moment my head jerked around, my jaw dropped, and I did manage to speak. "Rachel don't be stupid!" This is long before Homeland Security but on an Air Base they take jokes like that very, very seriously!!!In what was an eternal second Rachel and I are getting a free ride to the Base Commander's office. I was 15 at this time and I had just stated to understand why people cursed so the only thing I could say was...Shit! Shit! Shit! My Dad is gonna be so pissed off! Rachel who kept saying, "It was only a joke! I was just kidding!" didn't really understand the magnitude of the situation until the AP's in the front seat say, "Well I'm curious when your Dad gets called in to the Base Commander's office and he gets busted a stripe do you think he'll be laughing at your joke?!"At that point Rachel starts balling and tears are streaming down my cheeks. Long story short the Base Commander is a totally cool guy and "doesn't believe in superceding the authority of a parent and child relationship" so he turns us over to our parents and says" whatever you do just make sure it doesn't happen again." Fortunately my Dad believed me when I told him what had happened and I just got one of those talks that reminded me I should be careful who I hang out with. Rachel wasn't at school for the next couple of days and didn't participate in any school activities for quite a while. She never fessed up about what exactly happened when she got home...but something tells me her sense of humor has chnged considerable! You know it never occurred to me but we never found oot who really called in the bomb threat! Somehow I think they tell the story a little different!
