Terminal Lance #133 “Literally II”

There were really only two ways to do this joke:

1. End it with the obvious answer: Abe literally shits something out

2. End it with something else.

I went with the latter. For those of you bewildered at the images above, the phrase, “You’d better shit me one!” is extremely commonplace in the Corps. This is a subject I feel like a lot of people have probably been expecting me to do for some time, with it probably ending in the former of the options. I’ve had this in my head for a while, but actually figuring out a way to do it without resorting to the obvious punchline was difficult. If you’re disappointed, well, I assure you there are plenty of places on the internet you can find foreign objects being excreted from one’s rectum.

The “Literally” strip is one I’ve always loved, and one I’ve been meaning to follow up with some of the more ridiculous sayings commonly used around base. I suppose the late arrival of this strip is just the result of new ideas being… well… newer. I have a tendency to write jokes, then write new ones. When I come around to re-reading the older jokes, they are no longer funny to me since they aren’t new (to me anyway). After all, most jokes are only funny once (unless of course you’re accusing someone of putting shit in your pants, that never gets old). The ultimate result of this is that these ideas end up getting shelved until I forget about them and they become funny again. Its a vicious cycle, I can’t tell you how many jokes you’ve all missed out on for not being in my head at the right time.

In other news, I spent the majority of today at the East Bay Veteran’s Fair at the Concord Hilton (Concord, CA). It was a lot of fun, I was invited by the great Aaron Mattia, a former Marine who also organized the WonderCon event (where he invited me as well). The day was fun, I basically wandered around and talked with random people, met a few fans that happened to be attending and even signed a hat! I was also interviewed by the local paper, but I was hardly the most noteworthy person there. There were a vast number of combat veterans, from Vietnam and up, all of them with incredible experiences of their own to tell.

Really though, talking to Marines is so much different than talking to the average civilian. There’s a certain mutual understanding, an agreement of humility you won’t find with the average person. Veterans are really just easy to talk to, you’re not trying to impress them and they aren’t trying to impress you.

Anyway, if you’re out and you find yourself having no idea what to do, head over to your local Vet Center and they’ll get you spun up on what you need to know. Don’t know where one is? Here, let me Google that for you.

A photo!

If you’ve got photos from the fair, put them up on the Facebook page! This here is Sergeant Sandoval from the BART Police, a great guy to talk to by any standard! (He also assures me the BART Police are great people, so don’t listen to the rumors!)

One last note: I’d like to just say that Sgt. Scott Moore is definitely Terminal Lance of the Week, if not month, for his stellar work getting Mila Kunis to go to the ball with him. While I have a feeling this is going to spawn a plethora of me-too douchebags trying to score dates with hot, famous girls, I must give kudos where it’s due.

Fantastic work to Sgt. Moore.