I shoulda taken the reds, man...

If you are old and a child of the 70’s, like me, you grew up with Cheech and Chong. Smokin’ dope and listening to “Big Bamboo”. On the big black CD that required a needle to play. Phonograph needle, that is. They had a bit called, “let’s make a drug deal,” a parody of the TV show “Let’s make a deal.”  Anyone who has been in the military knows that there is an official way of doing things and then there’s the unofficial way of getting stuff done. Here we call those Drug Deals. One problem here is that some drug deals have been done that should have been done the official way and I have spent a considerable amount of time and energy undoing those deals and crossing my T’s and dotting the I’s so that there is a paper trail and making amends to officials who were none too happy after they found out about the transaction in question. However, that doesn’t mean that the deal de drug is still not happening. Yesterday was just such a day. I have talked about all the rules that we have to follow. One rule is that you have to wear a reflective belt after sundown. Makes sense, we don’t have a lot of street lights here. Kind of an easy way to adjust your aim, if you know what I mean. Also, you have to wash your hands before going to the Dfac to eat. Not ridiculous rules by any means. But they set up a sting and they checked everybody’s IDs and made sure that you had a belt on. If not you got busted. Karki, the Chief Medic, headed out without his belt to dinner and got busted by The Man. Calls of “Karki got arrested” rang out throughout the clinic. Panic ensued until he walked in, none too happy. Also someone was driving our black pickup truck and backed into someone who was also backing up. Two objects cannot occupy the same place in space, I think that is like Fig Newton physics or something, and smash. So we had a “safety stand down.” Which means we had a lecture on backing and belt wearing. Or I think we did. I signed a paper saying I went to a lecture on it. Musta been the world’s shortest lecture because afterwards someone mentioned that they forgot to do the lecture part. Oh well. I will definitely back up wearing my reflective belt from now on.

Yesterday was the Role one meeting. It was at a different spot, the Canadian House and we had Tim Horton donuts, yum. Amazing the information that you learn after the meeting ends. Two quick conversations later, I was off doing deals and solved two patients’ problems that have been going on for awhile. One, a patient that we have been trying to get out of country and the other that walked in in the morning that had baffled us. Problem 1 solved with a color copier. Problem 2 solved with a consult by a Doc who just happened to be hanging around and was the specialty that I was looking for. A free donut and two medevacs. Now that’s a drug deal…