To the MEPS

I wake up at about 10 AM and remember that I'm going to the MEPS that day at 11 AM or so. Shit. I bust my ass to get ready and Sgt. Stevens arrives an hour and a half late at 12:30 PM. Whatever. We go back to the recruiters office and I take a piss test to make sure I havnt been dropping acid or eating magic brownies lately. We're sitting in the office and some ancient guy walks in and asks if theres anyone going to MEPS today. Sgt. Stevens wishes me good luck and I walk outside and see that the "bus" is actually just one of those damn church vans with like 5 rows of seats. Fucking great.

So I get in and nobody else is on the "bus" yet. I pick a seat in the back so I don't have to talk to the old guy on our 2 hour trip to Nashville and make sure that I worry myself to death. It turns out this old turd drives like a bat out of hell, screaching our fat ass van out of the parking lot and nearly getting us hit by an 18 wheeler. FUCKING GREAT. We take a little trip in the wrong direction and stop at a Waffle House. The son of a bitch driving informs me that we'll be here for about 15 minutes and turns the van off and heads in leaving me inside the oven, I mean van.

30 minutes later he comes back out and we head off in the correct direction this time. We stop at another recruiting station and pick up two more guys. One of them looks like your average former high school soccer player, the other looks like Beethoven. I never knew either of their names so I'll just refer to them as Zidane and Beethoven. As we're motoring along Zidane turns around and asks me if this is my first time to MEPS. I tell him yes and he informs me that its "going to suck." The usual I guess. He then lets me know that if I get the doctor with the white hair, hes going to tell me to bend over and spread my asscheeks and touch my asshole. Fucking great.

Our conversation ends there and then Beethoven chimes in with some bullshit about how the semi next to us "must have hooked up his trailer lights wrong because the second trailer doesn't appear to be applying its break lights at all even though the first trailer is and blahblahblahblahblah." Oh yeah, and "blahblahblah" Zidane glances up into the drivers rear view mirror rolls his eyes at me. I laugh. Beethoven then begins to make himself sound like a general know it all and a wontshutthefuckupitall for the entire trip to Nashville. After arriving in Nashville we got off the van at a place that didn't look anything like a hotel. That's because it wasn't, it was the MEPS. The driver tells us to just hang out and listen for the page over the PA system calling for people going to the hotel. He said it should be about 20 minutes.

3 FUCKING hours later, another garbled message comes over the shitty PA system and I hear the word hotel. We all go to the front of the building and theres 3 buses there. I board the bus that I rode in on and the driver makes sure that everyone is going to "Atkins." Fucking great. I tell him no and bust my ass getting off and get onto the van going to the hotel. Theres one seat left next to a super fox and I sit down nex to her. Of course she makes a weird face when we meet eyes and looks the other direction and any chance of this trip being enjoyable goes right out the window.

We arrive at the most awesome looking hotel I've seen. Really. This place must be a 4 or 5 star. Hell yeah motherfucker. We all walk in and take a seat and wait for some guy to give us a briefing. Eventually the guy who told us to have a seat gets up and asks for all of the people who are shipping out to basic the next day. He gives them the run down, their keycards and they all fuck off. He then asks for all of the people who are going to the MEPs for the first time. The 3 of us that are left walk over to him. Me, some guy who looks like he just got out of the NFL, and a kid who appears to have downs syndrome. He basically tells us if we go on the wrong floor or leave the hotel he will fuck us up. Whatever. He gives us our cards and we start walking down the hallway. I find out on the elevator that the kid with downs syndrome is going to be an Infantryman too. Sweet, I'm in good company I guess. Fucking great.

So we begin walking down the hall to our rooms and the NFL dude and me end up at the same door. I sigh inside and ask him if hes staying in 404 too. An obvious yes comes and we both go in. I pretty much do everything in my power not to piss this guy off and we go to dinner and sit together. I find out that hes actually just switching from the Active Army to the National Guard. Cool. I tell him im trying to get in as an Infantryman and he looks at me like im a fucking retard and then asks me if I'm a fucking retard. I don't remember what I said next but it didn't help. Anyway, we head back up to our room and he grabs the remote and turns to Family Guy or some shit. We never really talked much after that and at midnight I looked over and he was asleep. I attempt to do the same but it doesnt work. I eventually dozed off around 1 or 2 AM and then our lovely phone rings at 4:15 AM.

We both get up and do our thing and head down for breakfast. At breakfast I find out that the kid with downs syndrome basically pissed off about 20 guys last night and told them all about shrimping (yes im serious) and they now call him DD for some reason.