R-99 Two Digit Midget In The Grass

Back in my Southeast Asia (SEA) days, when a military guy was approaching his DEROS (Date Estimated Return from Over Seas), he was referred to as being a "short timer". 

(By the way, this is where the title of Hasford's autobiographical book "The Short-Timers" comes from, which is vastly superior to Kubrick's realization of it in "Full Metal Jacket", which I thought was a great movie. Highly recommend if you've got a strong stomach.)

This term (probably instantly) devolved to said troop being classified as "short". And when that troop had 100 days (or "99 days and a wake-up", as it was known) remaining in-country before the Freedom Bird took him back to the land of the Big PX, he'd say that he was getting so short that he couldn't see over the tops of his combat boots. He became a "Two-Digit Midget". Sometimes troops counted the remaining days down by filling in any of about a million versions of 100-day calendars like this one:

"So Short I Can't See Over My Boots"

I got a couple of versions of these things somewhere that I'm too lazy to dig out. But I probably should, since the computer just notified me this morning I'm down to 99 days till retirement, which seems odder than it should. Apparently I'm subject to the human predilection for weird border numbers just like a regular person and, since it struck me how much it struck me, I figured I'd rope y'all into it, too.

Spent #100 (yesterday) out and about with Bettina. We only loafed around for abut 200 miles, which used to be nothing, but pretty much wore me out for some reason. I could blame it on the lots of twisty little 90-degree turn roads I was laying around while exploring one of the intestinal bends of the Red River that push like badly contained balloons up into the Oklahoma underbelly, but that ain't it, I don't think. I guess I just need to spend more time on the road to get my endurance back into place. On the upside, I did spend a lot of time laying around in shady grass dozing and drinking cold water (was still nearly 100F) and, frankly, there are worse ways to spend a useless day...

Bettina Being Patient Till I Get Back On The Road

 OK, it ain't much of a post. But, then, it wasn't much of a day, which are infinitely more relaxing than the "interesting" ones.