The one great thing about this place is that you never EVER have to do your laundry or iron your own uniform if you don’t want to.  For the low low price of $2.50 a set you can have your uniforms pressed at the pressing shop.  Given that our per diem is $3.50 a day (or something like that) I don’t feel too guilty about spending the $2.50 every 3 days or so.  Also, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to spend money on.  Our food is provided and entertainment is limited so unless I’m online shopping there’s nothing to spend money on. 

That being said…  I’ve never had an issue with getting my own uniforms back until two days ago.  I picked up, what I thought were my uniforms on Sunday night.  Monday morning I got dressed in my usually groggy, slinty-eyed state.  I noticed the waist was a little bigger then usual but I attributed to losing weight (which made me very happy).  At the same time I noticed they were a little longer than usual as well.  Again, I attributed that to lost weight.  I left for work without another thought about it.

As I’m walking to work I can’t help but notice that no matter what I do that pants that I was wearing were just too darn big.  While I was happy about the prospect of new loss I knew there was no way I could have dropped that much since the last time I wore a new clean uniform.  So, I got an idea. 

See, the Naval service is the only service that puts their names on the back pocket of their pants.  I waited until I got to work to check.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

These are not my pants.

Instead of TREPPE on my back pocket it says MERLIN*.  I don’t know anyone named Merlin so why do I have their pants?  So, I looked up the name in the global address list on Outlook.  Merlin is the last name of a Lieutenant Commander (O4) that is the Officer-in-Charge of a command across the lake from me.  

So, I sent him an e-mail.  Lo and behold, he has my pants too.  I forwarded my e-mail to Karyn who in turn sent it to a few select people.  I would have done the same thing because the situation is pretty damn funny.  I was a little taken back, however, when random people came up to me and said they were the “Pants Police” and needed to see my butt.

On a good note.  I’m glad this happened here, in Baghdad, where there are no spouses around.  I can’t imagine how hard it would be trying to explain to your significant other why there is a pair of pants hanging in your closet that don’t belong to you.

(* The name has been made up but the story is real.)