Phase 10

Phase 10 is a game. More on that later.

I took the wife with me to TPU yesterday. Seems if you are going to take the Survivor Benefit Plan to give her a percentage of your percentage of retirement when you die...well, you can authorize that. But if you're not, she has to come in and personally sign that she knows it.

Wife is hyper-impatient. TPU people are hyper-tudeinal (as in, attitude-inal). Somethings gonna give this warm Florida morning. She did pretty good. We had gotten a series of incomplete answers and tones of voice that showed minimal amounts of professional courtesy already. (And there is a lot of other material to blog about happening in that run down office, but I fear this particular line of posts is becoming tedious to y'all.) So we have finally bounced between desks enough times that someone finally breaks down and takes our SBP paperwork. As I said, they have to witness her signing it.

So Nong signs it and PN1 immediately says, "Don't print it, a signature." "That is her signature", I say. So she's looking at it a little skanky-eyed and I offer, "Would it help if she also signs it in Thai? Then they might see why her signature is not in cursive."

"It's up to you", she says, with what seems to be a trace of disdain in her voice. "Well, I mean then they'd see that English is not her native language. What do you think?" Again, with practiced indifference, she slightly tilts her head and says, "Whatever you want."

By this time, Nong is way past annoyed and I am starting to feel the back of my neck getting hot. I said, still maintaining my cool, "You know whether this is a good idea or not. Why won't you just come off some advice???.

Then she raised her voice a little, like she was talking to a naughty child and said, " I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO GIVE YOU ADVICE ON THIS." That is the precise instant that I started losing it. "Dadgummit, P... O... ONE (Petty Officer First Class)" and spoken
in my most measured, I am several paygrades above you and beginning to get pissed off voice, "I am NOT asking for advice on whether or not to give her this money. THAT decision has already been made, as evidenced by her being here in this office today to sign the document. What I AM asking, is for advice on making sure her signature is accepted on the form, which in my opinion is pretty much your JOB, and has nothing at all to do with SBP. So why don't you just dial back the sarcasm just a bit and we work this out and I get out of your office. Do you think that might be possible, Petty Officer ______?"

She finally got the point. She signed her witness block and in a calm, professional, and chastised fashion responded with, "Senior Chief, would you like me to make you a copy of this?" "Yes I would, thank you".

Later on she was to actually expedite my working copy of my DD-214 (my certificate saying that I was honorably retired) so I could go back down to Tampa and do phone in musters for a while instead of sitting up here cooling my heels and eating all of Mike's food.

All is well. Thursday I sign the paper and head back to Tampa. My final contact with the navy will be the real DD-214 arriving in the mail. Boo-yah!

We have been playing cards and swimming a lot with Mike's kids. The girl is 16 and the boy 15. They enjoy having the company, and we used to come to their house, and they to ours, to play cards on the weekends. So there is precedence. They laugh so hard when we play Phase 10 because they gang up on me and kick my butt. For some reason, kicking my butt at Phase 10 is uproariously funny.

I took everybody to Outback for dinner. $142 with tip. I was almost Outback, washing dishes doggone it. But you could have never told it from my face. Like Tony Soprano said, "I was like the sad clown. Laughing on the outside but crying on the inside." Well, OK, not that bad. But it was still a hundred forty two smackers just to eat. At least the waitress was cute.

Unless somethig really bad happens, we're done doing navy posts. Tomorrow, we will experiment.

Travelin' Ed