Toxic Memories

   This Thanksgiving we had dinner at my father-in-law's assisted living facility. The kitchen does a fine job on holidays preparing a fancy dinner with all the trimmings. The only bad thing was no leftovers. So we bought a turkey breast, Teresa made meatballs and I made cranberry sauce. On Sunday we invited friends over. My sister told me we were having a Friendsgiving, which I googled for pointers.
  The website suggested we go around the table and ask each person to tell his or her favorite Thanksgiving memory. I hate that crap. I had a memory I knew would put my friends off their feed. It occurred in 1969 at the Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo Texas.
  I was actually in the Navy, but after eight weeks of boot camp in Illinois, I had spent all my time on Army and Air Forces bases. The Army base had been in Monterey, California where I had been taught Vietnamese for nine months. Now I was in Texas to learn how to get dirt on the North Vietnamese.
  As a low-ranking enlisted man I was sometimes required to do other dirty jobs. My least favorite was KP duty in the giant mess hall. You reported early and stayed till the last pot was hung to dry.
  At least the job wasn't a permanent hell like it was for one poor soul who worked there. He was also a swabbie like me, but his orders had been lost and he couldn't start his training until they turned up.
   They were glad to take him on at the mess hall, but after a month they took pity on him and gave him the job of arranging the decorative parsley around the food pans in the serving line. They even gave him a tall chef's hat and he would wander the mess hall asking us diners how everything was tasting.
   I had the bad luck of drawing KP on Thanksgiving Day. We had to show up early because they started serving dinner at 11:00 for people who had to go on duty. We hauled out the quivering tubs of mashed potatoes, squash and gravy. Soon dirty dishes were appearing in the scullery windows. The plates, cups, and silverware could go through the dishwasher, but the pots and tubs had to be washed by hand. Many of the military people who lived off base brought their families to the mess hall for the big holiday meal. Incredible.
   Finally the last pot was washed and I was dreaming of calling it a night when I noticed a long line forming in the hall. What's this! It was a gang of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, lacking in mercy or any human feeling. These people had eaten early and now thought they were going to get leftovers. Go away! Go to McDonalds if you're still hungry! We're fresh out of everything comestible. But Sgt. Major Pancake, our head chef, guided me to my place behind the serving line and pasted a smile on my face. All I could do was chew parsley and lump it.

                You can clean up after yourselves. I'm not your mother.