Yada yada yada

In Basic you're told not to do a whole mess of things, for instance:

"Don't try and squeeze your scrawny butt through that window, just because it's the girls showers over there."

"Don't do what I say, do what I mean!"

and the mother of them all:

"Don't piss me off."

I, personally, received: "Wipe that smile off your face," more times than I can count.

At any rate, one of the more stupid ones was, "Don't use NeverDull on your belt buckles... it makes the regulation nickle look like chrome."

Now, maybe I was taking a chance here that could've gotten my butt sent straight to hell via savage pummelling, but I couldn't let something like that just slide... I had to try it. To find out if anyone really noticed.

So, while on guard duty, I whipped out a belt and gave it a good going over. It was beautiful. It glowed. I put it back and thought about what I'd done. It could be a really bad thing. I could wash back to some group 6 weeks back (since this happened in the last week of Basic, when you constantly wear your dress uniform). That'd suck. How can I change the current situation?

So I buffed up my flight leaders belt. And the line leaders belts. And I did those so that they made their own light, putting the full moon to shame. You could light a fire with those things.

Anyway, the next day came along and the yelling commenced. But each one, sweating tears, could honestly say that he had not buffed those suckers up. The Training Instructor came my way, with an even pace, looking at belts... and he walked right past.

The guy 2 down got his butt chewed, though.