Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Kirby has a plate in his head from 'Nam; no Pfennigs for "die toilette" door-lock? Just use the urinal - Jobs of Bob - book version

2 May 2012

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Kirby has a plate in his head from 'Nam; no Pfennigs for "die toilette" door-lock? Just use the urinal - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 5/2/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.

    Ever go to a sporting event and the bathroom stales are all occupied?  Somebody made a comment not long ago at work regarding said dilemma and it reminded me of Ol' Kirby and an experience I witnessed back in the Army.  Ol' Kirby had done a tour in 'Nam and had a metal plate in his head from a combat wound.  I don't know what his personality was prior to the addition of the plate, but when I knew him, he was subject to fits of random excited anxiety. And another memorable trait, he looked just like Sammy Davis Jr. - same size, same crooked eye, same hair, same speech.  

    One day we were in convoy up the Autobahn highway in Germany.  At their rest areas you had to put some German coins in the toilet stall to get in the damn door - about five cents, or Pfennigs, in German.  Poor Kirby did not have any change.  The couple of us in the bathroom at the time did not either.  

    Poor Ol' Kirby said, "Hey, Keith baby. Give me some goddamned fucking Pfennings...I got the shits man!"

    Me and the other guy just shrugged.  We just did not have any damn change that day. 

    "Oh hell," Kirby said with a sick look.  "I got to shit bad, Keith baby!"  

    The next thing we knew, Ol' Kirby was dropping trou' and heading for the wall-mounted urinal.  Me and the other guy booked on out of there.  Ol' Comrade German cleaning dude had a little surprise waiting for him later that morning compliments of Kirby.  "Comrade" was a name we gave the collective German population. 

    I will say this, that the first time I ever saw a sink or urinal flusher that was activated by a movement scanner, was in Germany.  It was way back in 1975.  Hell, some of the guys I served with from some podunk towns in America did not even have running water as kids.  

    But then again, during the height of the Cold War we Americans numbered around half a million military personnel in Europe.  I guess since us podunk suckers were carrying old Comrade's water for him, and we took care of the defense of his nation against the "commie hoards," he could focus on developing motion scanners in his fucking shitters. 

    I remember the first time I used a sink with no handles in Germany.  The Army vernacular was that, "I was lost as a motherfucker."  I looked all over the sink for those non-existent handles. Some of the more tech-savvy guys got a big kick out of my naivety with that good German technology.  

    On that fateful morning at the Autobahn rest stop, Ol' Kirby kind of evened the score for us lesser mortals.  

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).