The Island of Misfit Boys

It’s Friday night here on the ship, though Friday night is a bit of a foreign concept here.

Life is slowly reverting to normal, or at least deployment normal. The comforts that have been missing so much over the last few weeks are trickling back in. Peanut butter, bread, fresh fruits and vegetables. Yesterday we got mail for the first time in a month, bringing packages and letters from home.

The temperature here is sweltering. In walking past a door to the outside of the ship, even when shut, you feel the radiating heat from outside. I haven’t been outside during “daylight” hours in three days, ever since the heat index crept into the triple digits. It keeps going up, each day bringing it a little higher. In 3 days, the heat index will top 150 degrees, which is something that I personally don’t enjoy.

Still, even here, with Friday night being a foreign concept (see me, in my office, at midnight), you still have time for some fun. Watching the sunset with a close friend, huddling 4 people onto two beds to watch a movie on a laptop, you have fun, you forget about the constant work for a few hours.

In a funny way though, I wish everyone had these hours. Everywhere. It’s annoying when you have to work round the clock, but you know that from Friday evening until Monday morning, the emails you need answers from will not be replied to. It’s agonizing in a way, knowing that you’ll continue working and playing the waiting game. I remember Fridays back in port, which were a few meetings, PT, and a long lunch. You normally went home early, you couldn’t wait to be out the door. Here it’s a matter of necessity. We work 7 days a week, so it’s aggravating to end up waiting on someone for something as nonexistent as a weekend?

But when I get home? Don’t bother shooting me an email after 1500 on Friday, I won’t see it until Monday morning anyway.