I spent a good portion of my morning with a man named Lamont. Yesterday he approached me about carpooling over to ____ for a meeting that was also going to be broadcast as a SVTC, which stands for Secret Videoteleconference and is pronounced "sieve-itts". If one is going to remotely attend such a meeting, the act of doing so is called sievettsing in - this never ceases to crack me up. So when Lamont asked me to carpool I asked him if he had a car. He replied yes, and I told him in that case I would love to. That rather cracked me up too.
We took what he called his “humble black chariot” – an S class Mercedes Benz - and rode in style. Funny was such luxury for me (not “ha ha” funny) because I rarely ride in style. I am just not a rideinstyle kind of girl. Anyway, so as Lamont and I were discussing things or I was telling him one story or another, he would rejoinder not by saying yes” or “oh” or “hmmm” or “I see,” but rather he would nod and say “here here.” He would utter these words so frequently too, like one attending a gospel service might say “amen.” He would say "here here" so often over the course of my stories that I just kept on talking to see how long I could maintain both his attention and his concurrence. I am not typically a big talker (when it comes to people whom I have only just met), but I just wanted to keep blabbing on and on with him cheering me on with his "here heres," like the way people are inspired to keep running a long race because crowds are celebrating them. Hmmmuh. I just reminded myself of a funny pun that might take a bit of history to explain.
First I will make the pun/joke, then I will explain it. That way those of you who already know the background can skip over it and not be annoyed or bored. So, here goes:
'If Lamont were in a propulsion plant, where would you find him?'
'In a hear-here booth!'
Ha ha ha ha ha. I crack myself up – I know, I can hear the groaning (here) from all of those already in the know.
For those who aren't, here's the history (here): down in the propulsion plants it is very loud (due to the rotating machinery & steam). Therefore, when watchstanders have to communicate on the phone, they put their heads in soundproof booths that we call “hear-here” – or is it “here-hear?” I could never decide which – booths. So, yeah, that would be where you could find Lamont if he were in the propulsion plant. Okay, that horse is still dead. Sorry to belabor the pun.
So the meeting was good. I believe I gave good input, helped advance my cause and generally kicked ass. Funny, that is certainly a testament to my line of work now. In days past, I might have measured daily accomplishments by how much maintenance got done on my watch, whether we got underway or started the plants up safely, or whether we were able to engage all of our targets in suchandsuch an exercise. Instead, now all I can say is that I kicked ass in a meeting and I created and briefed a successful prep book for the General. Late in the afternoon yesterday (the wacko things always happen after 4 pm in the office, it is like the witching hour, things get a little squirrelly, people get a little punchy), one of my colleagues (we’ll call him Lou Brock) started cheering, “Yeah! Yeah! Damn, when I was a kid and I dreamed of being in the Navy, this was the stuff I knew I would be great at: printing off slides, punching holes, setting tabs, and preparing KICK ASS binders! Yeah!” You said it Lou. Here here!
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