D-218: Strange Things Are Afoot in the Bathroom Trailer

Just when I thought I would have nothing to write about today, some wonderful foreign peoples go ahead and do another weird thing.

I just went to the bathroom trailer to perform my evening beauty rituals, and upon entering, I was greeted by two people of yet-to-be-determined nationality, standing at the sinks, stripped down to their tighty-whitey skivvies. They tensed up a bit when I opened the door, then turned their backs to me and quietly continued doing their thing.

Not wanting to engage in another pointless broken English conversation, I avoided eye contact, but tried to sneak a look at what they were up to in my peripherals.

They were washing their underpants in the sink. I looked back over toward the door, and the rest of their outfits were hanging, still soaking wet, from the PVC piping along the walls. I am assuming they are Terps from some other battalion, and I will further assume that the clothes they were washing were the only pair they had since they opted to wash their drawers in the sink rather than use the KBR laundry facility to which they are entitled, but two things that I still can’t figure out; do they have only one set of clothes, but two sets of tighty-whitey underpants? They were wearing one and washing the other, so clearly they had two, or the other pair was borrowed to serve this specific purpose. And are they going to just hang out in the head until those clothes are dry? Christ, foreigners are strange.

The bathroom is always a good spot to enjoy especially awkward, international social engagements. For the better part of the day, there is a team of five Nepalese bathroom cleaners, who, as far as I can tell, do nothing but clean our six bathroom trailers all day long. When they are not actively cleaning, they just sit around in there, relaxing on the shower benches, or standing by the air conditioner.

There are two sets of trailers for men, one shitter trailer and one shower trailer, so it is relatively easy to avoid them if they’re cleaning. Easy that is, unless they catch site of you, in which case they do everything in their power to get you to go into the bathroom that they are currently cleaning. They will literally chase after you, saluting and shouting “Nah Clost, O-pen, Nah Clost!” Why? I will never know, the other bathroom is only 12 feet away.

If you do happen to get suckered in, they all pause what they are doing, not wanting to disturb your peaceful crap with all their scrubbing and mopping, they just freeze. So you sit there, trying desparately to focus on the task at hand, but it is impossible with the knowledge that five men, none taller than 5’2”, are standing outside the stall, just staring at the door. When you exit, they all do their creepy smile-and-stare routine while you wash your hands and ultimately flee. What a bunch of wierdos.

Quote of the Day: CPT to me on a firefight during his last tour

“My tank platoon must have went through 6,000 rounds of 50 Cal, and the whole time all this is going on, their were kids... playing... soccer!”