There was this one time...

[Hollylane]

There was this one time....

Tell your quirky story here, whatever it is.....

Rule:
Be kind to each other.

I'll start with a true experience example:

Years ago, I went on a few dates with a butch woman, and there was this one time when she had given me her leather jacket so I could ride on the back of her Harley in comfort. I thought it was quite chivalrous, and I was impressed.

Up until that point, I had found her personality a little over the top and not very interesting. It was her show, and she seemed to have very little interest in anything about me. But, when I got off her Harley at the restaurant, my legs were trembling, and I was feeling really excited.

After watching the way she treated the waitstaff in the restaurant (dismissive, without kindness or dignity, and leaving no tip), I realized the excitement and the trembling legs were caused by the vibrations of the bike.

[SoNotHer]

I am inspired and will post in this thread when I have the right story. I like it :-)

[Gemme]

If no one comes in here and posts a 'one time, at band camp' story, I'm going to pout.

:eyebat:

[ruby_woo]

If no one comes in here and posts a 'one time, at band camp' story, I'm going to pout.

:eyebat:

I went to band camp but nothing more scandalous than sunburn took place. :(

I did have to start my first day of high school with an awful farmer's tan because of it. #boring

[Rockinonahigh]

this isnt band camp,but a stroy about my younger teenage rodeo days.It was all the rage to ride in queens contest at the state fairs and rodeos when they were in the towns and small cityes in the area.This happened to me...yes I said me....at the four States Fair and Rodeo in Texarkanna Ark.The contest ran over the three days of the events so on the last night the judges had a question and anser session in frount of a full house in the stands,We were to do a bit of a pattern to show horsemanship abilities then line up in a desidnated spot,when we all were done rideing then we rode up to the judges..got off the horse and walked to the judge to anser a couple of questions.When my turn came up I quietly rode to the judge,got off and said hello then he ask me the question I had picked.All went really good till I had to remount my horse.The old boy(the horse) was a bit tall for my 5'5" body so I had to do a bit of a jump for the sturrip..as luck would have it I got the sturrip on the first jump...then trouble begain....when I awung my leg over the saddle to finish getting on.RRRRRRRIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPP! I split my cherry red lame' pants from the back belt loop to the bottom of the zipper.Dont panic said my calm mind( I was thinking OOOO SHIT!)..I calmy sat down,smilled at the judge and waved to the croud like I didnt have a care in the world.All I can say is I am dam glad I wore a pair if cherry red silk undies that day.I didnt win it but came in first runner up.

[Hollylane]

If no one comes in here and posts a 'one time, at band camp' story, I'm going to pout.

:eyebat:

There was this one time at band camp that I was captaining the flag line, and one of the girls was missing from the formation, I found her. Sadly, she was shining something/someone behind the bleachers. When the band director and I walked up she got so scared she threw up.

It was probably a combined reaction to seeing the band director, and seeing me, the girlfriend of the one being shined, and also her best friend.

Meh, she did me a favor.

There you go, a true "one time at band camp" story.

[SoNotHer]

I did go to band camp but have no story like the last one, which made me laugh out loud. :-)

Quirky has happened for sure. But the story I came back to with this was the one that most reminded me of the first story and how an early impression of someone changed dramatically. In fact there are three stories that remind me of this, but I'll relay the most dramatic one.

I was excited to be part of a national writing conference that's held every summer and particularly excited to be studying with a renowned poet and professor of poetry. He is considered one of the foremost experts on the history and development of poetry, and he's widely published and known.

So imagine my sadness when he turned out he was a pompous ass who enjoyed tearing down every poem and poet in the workshop, which actually was filled with a select group of very talented individuals from across the country.

When he got to one of poems, he began to eviscerate it as had done the others, intermixing scathing commentary with long, irrelevant excursions into whatever tangential topic came to him. He used a lot of our paid workshop time to go down whatever road interested him, and he was clear disdainful and more than mildly irritated to have to read the work of 'lesser poets.'

He began to rift long and hard on a word I had chosen the wrong spelling and was sucking in a deep hit of air to continue the protracted upbraiding of the word, poem and poet, when I realized neither the relationship with this person as my mentor at that program or the workshop itself was salvageable to me. And then I did something no one else in the workshop had done.

In one sudden move, I took the flat of my hand and slapped it hard against the over-sized conference table, interrupting him. And then I said, "Can we just say that I misspelled that word and see if anything else from the poem can be discussed if that's now even possible?"

There was a profound silence in the room, and the tone of the workshop shifted from that point forward. The relationship with this person I revered was in fact severed, but what I gained was a different relationship with the poets with whom I studied, some of whom thanked me afterwards and shared something quite positive about my poetry - something they had been afraid to share in workshop.

Things change for sure, and some times some part of you shows up that you weren't even expecting to show up. And that's OK. And maybe it's even more than OK.

[1QuirkyKiwi]

Quirky has happened for sure.

Errr.......it wasn’t me, honest! ……..I had my hands in my pockets allllll the time……..See?! :jester:

I was asked if I could teach a couple of Anatomy Technicians how to Embalm a Cadaver as well as Embalm one at one of the Medicals schools – the Senior Technician was very stressed with it being a the start of the academic year and two new Technicians ‘learning the ropes’. As we walked through the Anatomy room, I turned round and said: “I bet you’ve been tearing your hair out over the Summer!” ........ He had a baldy napper (I’m sure his wife polished every morning, lol!). He shot me such a look – I apologised........I’ll just add salt and pepper to my feet before putting in my mouth, next time! LOL! :D

[SoNotHer]

That's a good one! Foot in mouth for sure. :-)

Errr.......it wasn’t me, honest! ……..I had my hands in my pockets allllll the time……..See?! :jester:

I was asked if I could teach a couple of Anatomy Technicians how to Embalm a Cadaver as well as Embalm one at one of the Medicals schools – the Senior Technician was very stressed with it being a the start of the academic year and two new Technicians ‘learning the ropes’. As we walked through the Anatomy room, I turned round and said: “I bet you’ve been tearing your hair out over the Summer!” ........ He had a baldy napper (I’m sure his wife polished every morning, lol!). He shot me such a look – I apologised........I’ll just add salt and pepper to my feet before putting in my mouth, next time! LOL! :D

[ruby_woo]

I'm generally such a hot mess of falling down and doing dumb things I could probably fill a book.

When I first started in my current position, one thing I had to do was email the quality control efficiency report to the QC Manager, a man named Allen. I went to email it to him, and in the To field, I put Alle, hit enter, and send.

You know what other email starts with alle? All Employees. Yup, sent it to the whole company.

[JAGG]

This one time at band camp.. that was for Gemme.
This one time at work about 20yrs ago that's right 20 yrs ago yet someone sooner or later will find a reason to have to bring this up yet again. Haha like me right now. I will never live this down. So I'm unloading a trailer and I slid a huge 55gal drum up on the forks of my forklift. Driving across the dock to the trailer it was going to, I didn't see a small piece of wood from a busted pallet and ran over it. Which caused my lift to jump up and down like a pot hole in the road. That made the drum fly up about 3 in. Slam back down on the forks and fly off again, tip over and slam to the ground, bounce a couple time and the entire top of it flew off and 525 lbs of PIG GUTS going to a meat packing plant came spewing out everywhere. Not only was it shocking to look at , but the odor was unbearable. And for anyone who didn't see it happen could smell it in less than 30 sec. What a freakin mess. There must have been 500 of them or more. They were covered in a water like gel and slippery as snot. Impossible to try and pick up with a shovel. Everytime you would finally get underneath one without it shooting 3 ft in front of you, you'd lift the shovel up and it would either slide right off, or come slipping down the handle right at you. Holy God what a freakin mess. Hahaha all is well that ends well though. Haha

[*Anya*]

I was 17 and my hubby-to-be and I were trying to find a place to have sex-not that easy @ 17. We finally thought of a place. Where?

Deep in the Maryland woods.

It was lush and green. We found a lovey patch of ground that was covered with beautiful ivy.

I stripped and settled back- you guessed it. That beautiful ivy was indeed poison ivy. I was covered on my entire back, back of my legs, arms and, of course, all over my ass.

It was excruciating and worst of all, I had to hide it from my extremely strict parents or face a far worse punishment than the poison ivy.

[foxyshaman]

I am a dork. Lets just get that out of the way. A very happy, go lucky dork, but a dork nonetheless.

I was at the office (shocking but true), it was casual day... yeah. I was wearing my favorite jeans. I was goofing around in front of my friend, pretending to ballet leap. Well I lept alright. Lept, fell and heard the all to familiar "rriiiipppp". The inside of my thigh ripped wide open. All I could was laugh. The incident caused my friend to laugh. She laughed so hard she fell over and hit her head on the post. Which of course made both of us laugh even harder.

So, as one would guess, laughter (without good cause) causes curiousity. Next thing I know around 20 ppl are standing around asking what happened. I had to gracefully (if that even fits) stand up and, of course, I could not hide the all too wide rip in my jeans.

Someone kindly, through giggles, asked if I needed a jacket to cover myself. I replied "Hell no, like I can hide this embarassment". Well, apparently that too was funny.

For some reason, to this day I do not remember why, I had an extra pair of jeans in my car. I gracefully (questionable word) walked out of the office, and changed jeans in my car.

Moral - Leaping ballerina moves in thin thighed jeans is not a good idea. Tripping whilst leaping... even less of a good idea.

[Estella]

Right. So about, holy guacamole, about 20-ish years ago, I had a craving for Boston Chicken. Boston Chicken is what Boston Market used to be called. Don't be a hater. So my then-partner and I drive down to Boylston St. and I go in and place my order. Out of the corner of my eye I notice this guy counting change into his hand off the counter - you know, sliding the coins into his open palm. And he's getting frustrated, and the change is starting to fall onto the floor, but I'm not really paying attention. Just watching, not seeing. So I pay, take my chicken, and leave.

You know what's coming, right? The ugly realization that the man I wasn't really watching was trying to see if he had enough money to buy something to eat. To buy food. And he didn't. And I did. And I did nothing. Because in my chicken-buying obliviousness I couldn't be bothered to pay attention, to actually notice, another person.

At some point, most people make a decision about kind of person they want to be. Two events in my life have informed my decision. One was in Basic Training - Boston Chicken was the other. I will never be that blind again.

[Mr Nice Guy]

Ok here's mine.
Picture this. I'm 17 and just came out and ran away from a group home (Mom helped) she put me on a train to W.Va. Yup! Anyway, I went to my first bar and found out that you had to be 18 to get in. So I went to get my Army clothes. I got my Army outfit at one of those Army surplus stores and put it on and went to the bar and got in. Now mind you, I was alone.
I started going there often and one night I saw this very tall attractive Lady and she noticed me. We kind of checked each other out and met at the bar to get a drink. Ok, she went to get a drink and I followed her there. ;)
We started talking and she needed to go smoke so I went with her. Once we got outside we talked some more. I must of said something because she looked at me with surprise and said, "your a girl?" I said, "yes" and then it dawned on me and I said, "your a guy?" Well we ended up being friends after that until I went back home. I was a new Butch and had my first lesson in the differences of the gay world. I'll also admit that I was proud of pulling off the guy thing. I was more Tg minded then.

[princessbelle]

OMG A place to tell ridiculously true stories!!!!!

How cool is that. Didn't ever go to band camp though.

However....

There was this one time i was at a gay bar. It was years and years ago and i was with a friend who was gay as well. You know bars....LOUD, cold. yada yada.

There was this really cute butch sitting next to me and she said, "Do you want to dance?" I couldn't hear her but i could see what she was saying.

I was trying to say "OK, the next fast song i will" But, she couldn't hear me. She couldn't "read" my lips. So finally, she put her ear really close to my mouth. Well, i was still in the over-emphasizing mode and accidentally....

bit
her
ear.

That's right.

I bit her freaking ear.

She grabs it in total pain and doubled over. Not sure but i think i drew blood. I could tell she was hurting without hearing the cussing coming out of her mouth...yes i can read lips. She then looks at me like i was a total freak and walked off.

I never did get that dance.

Lesson learned.....when someone sticks their ear in your mouth. Don't bite down. Well, unless it's Saturday night, Tequila is involved and you know this person really well.

:praying:

[Quintease]

Nothing exciting happened to me at band camp, however quite a lot of exciting things happened to me in the gay club.

One of them was meeting my first girlfriend. I was newly out, full of bravado and more often than not full of liquid courage. One night I was there with my only real gay friend and drinking buddy, eyeing up girls as usual. This particular night one particular girl kept catching my eye, her and her friend were all over the bar yet didn't seem to be speaking to anyone but each other. After watching them for a while I'd finally had enough drinks to make my move when they decided to pop into the toilets.

I followed them in, waited nonchalantly beside the basins, then pounced as she walked out.

"Oh hi there,' she said 'What was your name again? It's been so long"

Yes indeedy, I knew her. Not only had she dated a male friend of mine, but the girl she was with that night was her secret girlfriend who she'd met at church.. :eyebrow:

[JAGG]

I'm afraid I have had so many misadventures in my life, I could fill 20 pages on this thread and still think of more. hahaha However I try to refrain from amusing others at my own expense. haha

[ruby_woo]

I think I briefly mentioned this in the Awkward Moment thread, but might as well tell the whole story.

I moved to San Francisco not long before my 19th birthday and lived there for about 3 years. I really love the city, so I go back to visit every so often. Last time I went back, I had packed this purple and cream coloured vintage dress. It's cute but stretchy and comfy, so I decided to wear it on the plane ride back to Vancouver.

At the airport, I'd stopped at the bathroom and when I was done I grabbed my bag, and went to find my gate. I was walking for a quite awhile before I realized it was a bit breezy back there. I'd tucked my skirt into my undies, and walked through the damn airport like that, and NO ONE TOLD ME.

The crappy part was I wanted to get some food, but that involve walking back past the folks who just gotten a good view of my butt. After awhile I was hungry enough that I said "Fuck it, they've already seen my underwear" so I went back, but yeah... that was fun.

[Library_girl]

So this one time at Girl Scout camp..... (no band camp, but it's my only camp reference!)

Ok, not really a camp story.

It was my first day at my current job. After a couple of hours with my new, very intimidating boss, and a couple more hours of intense training and note-taking, I finally got a few minutes to break away. I desperately needed a cigarette. So I went out to my car and enjoyed a very delicious smoke. Then just as I was about to walk inside, it hit me: I just locked my keys in my car! Dammit! I'm 2000 miles from home and I've just moved here about 3 days before. I don't know anyone, and I'm expected back inside and ready to learn about 384 new things today. Instead I have to confess that I'm really a moron and I need the yellow pages, and by the way, where am I? Lovely first impression!

[Parker]

I realized the excitement and the trembling legs were caused by the vibrations of the bike.


I gotta ask - did you immediately go out and get your own bike after that? :winky:


I'll come back as well when I think of a good story. :)

[WomenMoveMe]

When younger, I had a kabillion jobs. Okay, maybe about twenty or so, but a lot just the same. At one point I decided to try my hand at waitressing. It was not that I wanted to carry people's food around, but I had exhausted so many other forms of employment, I decided, why not?

I was living in South Florida and got a job at an expensive restaurant in Golden Beach on the intercoastal. I was paired with another. She took the order, I did the running.

We were busy almost every night. However, one night, it was just insane. I got 'in the weeds' (behind) quite a bit and became a little manic as I tried to catch up. At one of my tables was a very nice, Latin American family. They spoke no English and I spoke no...wherever they were from. The parents were very well put together, with a very handsome son of ten. I know he was ten because it was his birthday and I was to deliver a cake to the table after their meal.

Jittery from the panic of being in the arrears, I was trying my best to get the cake to them. I had to transfer the cake from it's cardboard platform to a raised silver serving plate. I managed that quite well and put the candles in place. I was anxious to get the cake to them so as to tend to all the other patrons that were demanding my immediate attention. As I rushed to the table, cake in hand, candles lit, I sorta slipped or tripped or something and inadvertently squashed against the cake.

It smashed the candles down in to the cake and the writing on the cake that had read, 'Feliz Cumpleanos', now read 'iz pleanos'. My apron now read 'leF muC" in green frosting. I was so behind, I decided to just go with it. As if they weren't going to notice!

I took the cake to the table, offering my biggest and best smile as if that might overshadow this disaster of a cake and they might not notice something was amiss. I offered a quick 'Happy Birthday' as they all just stared at me. They were so sweet they even tried to return my overzealous smile. The father said something and as I did not understand it, I didn't even have to pretend I didn't. It really was kind of a pathetic moment for all concerned and I felt terrible.

I did not last much longer as a professional waitress. Turns out, it just wasn't for me.

[tapu]

There was this one time when I was hiking in Big Sur with a few gay guy friends and we passed by a little straight family headed the other way.

It was hot and both my companions and I were wearing nothing more than shorts, white A-shirts, and hiking boots.

Moments after we passed the family, their little boy, maybe 5 years old, called out, "That one guy was a lady! I know 'cause I saw her boobies!"

[Parker]

My mom and I were just chatting about spirits, etc and it reminded me of how there was this one time, not too long ago, when it was late at night and I was taking out the trash. On my way back into the house, I clearly heard someone say, in what can only be described as a stage whisper, "Help ... me."

There was no one there.

[tapu]

Then there was this one other time, in a Big Sur camp, when my gay-guy friend turned left to go into the men's bathroom, and I turned right and went into the women's.

These two elderly ladies went into and then immediately came flying out of the men's room, laughing and blushing and hiccuping and saying, "Oh, my, we thought that young was a fella!"

In all fairness, my head was shaved and Kevin was a bit of a nelly boy....

[Parker]

lol, tapu just reminded me of how there was this one time when I was living in San Diego and I was at the Ferry Landing in Coronado waiting to head across the Bay to downtown SD but I wanted to visit the restroom first.

I was headed towards the ladies restroom, of course, when this little old woman came out, took one look at me, and then stood in the doorway refusing to let me in because she thought I was a man.

I was about to offer to flash my tits when she figured it out and let me pass.

[Parker]

There were these few times when I was a baby dyke in San Diego hanging out at a lesbian bar, singing Melissa Etheridge's Like The Way I Do at the top of my lungs with a few of my baby dyke friends. I remember seeing the older dykes watching us, smiling that smile - that knowing smile of remembering what it was like to be young and stupid, but fearless and full of energy.

I know that look because I *am* one of those older dykes now, smiling at the baby dykes and the young butches strutting around, cocky - I wish I could go back to that baby dyke that was me and tell her to stop taking shit so seriously, to cut loose a little more, to enjoy where she is at that moment.

Or at least, I wish I could have stepped away from the self-absorption and arrogance of youth and spoken to those older dykes; to hear their stories and thank them for their struggles that made things just a bit easier for me, just like my struggles have made things a bit easier for this generation and their struggles will make things a bit easier for the next generation.

[Parker]

There was this one time when I was in high school and had no idea I was gay (apparently, I was the only one who didn't know ... w/e). I had this really really good friend who was also oblivious to her gayness but everyone around us knew and called us "bosom buddies."

In order to get the bullies off of her back, she tossed it all on me, saying *I* was the gay one and we weren't friends.

To impress upon everyone around her that she was not gay and in fact hated me and all gay people, she decided to carve the word "DIKE" into the locker next to mine.

Oops.

Even then, that made me lol - now, it is my favorite "gay HS" story. :winky:



ps ... we're both big ol' butches now :bandana:

[macele]

there was this one time lol .... (always makes me laugh to say that), ...

i've had a "thought you were a guy" story too.

i put my hand on the restroom door to go in and all of a sudden i heard from behind me ... HEY! HEY! WAIT! YOU CAN'T GO IN THERE! ... i can hear him running toward me.

i turn around with a what the hell look on my face, ... it's a mall cop, ... he just says, i'm sorry. this time in a calm voice.

i'm too shy to share the, there was this one time ... sex stories LOL. but i've enjoyed you all sharing lol.

[funkyfemme]

After completing the Surgical Technology program with my best friend, we landed jobs at the same hospital and had to go thru orientation together shortly after we started. They had someone from each department come in and tell a lil bit about what they do blah blah blah. Some of it was mind-numbing and made for a loooooong three days. At some point, an older lady, prolly in her 60s, came in and she had braces and fire red dyed hair and was just killing us with her monotone voice. I couldn't even tell ya what department, she was that boring. Anyhooo, she's rambling on and on and all of a sudden one of the rubberbands on her braces popped and stung her lip!! She paused and said "excuse me" then turned her back to us to hook that rubberband up then turned back around was as red as her flippin hair and continued like nothing happened! Forgetaboutit!!!!! I was DONE after that!! My friend and I could not stop laughing!! That hard ass laughing where you can only shake and nothing comes out and you're all red and your stomach hurts. IDK maybe you had to be there but man, that shit was funnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! That was about five yrs ago and we STILL talk about that!

[jac]

There was this one time...
I was in the beginning stages of training in martial arts, a novice (early 90s) and was in the middle of a sparring class with several others. We had all been jumping from one fight to the next at the command of our instructor. It was getting exhausting and I was fighting one of the toughest women in the place. The match had gotten rather heated and she had nailed me in the ribs taking the breath right out of me. Along the sidelines were some other students that were sitting around either tired or finished with their matches. There was this one woman (an ER doctor) we called Doc who was sitting watching with legs crossed. The woman I was fighting waited till I was almost with breath in me again and nailed me in the back of the head with a round kick. I heard someone say as I was falling to what I thought was soon to be the ground, "End it!" The woman fighting me (I heard about this later) took one finger to the back of my head and pushed me... It didn't take much at this point... I was falling already passed out... face first down Doc's cleavage and right into her lap. Face plant and passed out in her crotch! Being a lesbian it was forever before I stopped hearing about how I went down on Doc.... oy! lol

[1QuirkyKiwi]

There was this one time….

….Not so long ago when I was at a Buffet Party; with lots of chatting, laughing and music, I misheard a woman asking me about the finger food. I replied that I wasn’t fingering my food! ….All of a sudden the room fell silent....like it does. Oh boi! Did I have a hard time trying to explain what I really meant….it was one of those rare occasions where I was rendered speechless! LOL!

[luv2luvgirls]

there was this one time
20 yrs ago I was at a gay club and was used to girls walking up and kissing me. one night im hanging with my bud Rick and this girl comes up and starts kissing me. I start kissing back and next thing I know she has a hold of my tongue and wont let go. im trying to pull my tongue out of her death grip to no avail.She is holding on to my tongue like a life line and her teeth are sharp. So my buddy finally comes over and tries to pull us apart by our foreheads. The girl finally let go... lets just say I was cured of kissing strangers :blink:

[luv2luvgirls]

Ok talking about my Grans this morning reminded me of this one time,I was 15 and spending the night at her house and she was always up late. I woke up and after sitting next to her watching the TV for a minute I calmly asked Gran what are you watching? she, all 4'9'" of her and never heard her cuss, grabs her lil magnifying glass and her tv guide and states.. its says here a day in the life of a whore,and I always wondered what they went thru :| gran your watching a porn :| :|

[Parker]

The opening scene of the dispatcher talking to the small child in last night's episode of Criminal Minds reminded me of this one time when I was a police dispatcher, I got a 911 call from a woman who was pretending I was a friend who owed her money.

It seems her dealer was there with her, wielding a bat and threatening to beat the shit out of her with it if she didn't pay him the money she owed him.

I was able to get all of the info I needed from her by asking yes/no questions so that she wouldn't alert the dude to the fact that she was talking to the police.

At one point, I heard him screaming at her and hitting the wall with his bat - so you have to hand it to her for having the smarts & the guts to fool him into believing she was calling a friend when she actually called 911.

She was able to stay calm and keep the ruse going so that I could stay on the phone with her until my guys got there, guns drawn, to arrest the SoB dealer. :winky:

[Cuddles]

Talk about an awkward moment. I was at my friend's (gay guy) apartment. He was a senior in HS & lived with his mom who was single. One afternoon while she was at work he was smoking a cig and asked me to get a pack from his mom's dresser. I remember hollering at him asking which drawer as I opened them and then I found her naughty drawer. About 10 dildos, videos, & a couple mags. In classic fashion the apartment front door opened then and I nearly had a heart attack as I slammed the drawer shut and threw myself out the bedroom door in record time. Turned out it was just my friend letting the dog out!

[Parker]

There was this one time I was going to post a story of something I did that was crazy and possibly illegal - it was a good and funny story that explained what it was like for me to go through menopause, but I thought better of posting it ... read: I chickened out. :winky:


Instead, I will talk about how this one time, I was briefly stationed on the USS Constellation (aka the Connie) during the Women in the Sea program - which, to be fair, I dont know if that was actually the name of the program, but I called it that so much as a joke (like, chicken of the sea) that I dont know it by any other name now. lol

Basically, I was in the Navy during the time of no women in combat, no women on ships (save for hospital ships), etc but the higher-ups wanted to see how men and women working on ships worked together and if we requested it, they would allow us anywhere from 2-14 days on a ship of their choosing. I was on the Fort McHenry for a couple of days, then went to the Connie for 2 weeks

See, I was a Plane Captain for an anti-submarine helicopter squadron - it was a land-based squadron that was about 98% female and we trained the men who would be deployed on aircraft carriers. We were good enough to train the men, but not join them - and we were misogynistically referred to as a "rag squadron."

So it was important to me and a friend of mine to be on an aircraft carrier to get our Landing Signalmen Enlisted (LSE) qualifications, which just meant we would be qualified to do the same job we did then, just on an aircraft carrier.

Anyway, my friend and I were plugging along, having a grand ole time (she and I got our quals in 2 weeks - it took the men their whole 6 month deployment :winky: ) hanging out on the flight-line, taking tons of pics, learning what it was like to live on a ship (it sucks lol), etc.

One night, we were getting our night quals and a jet was coming in unexpectedly. We were just inspecting our birds, adding fluids, etc - but I should note that I was so stick-thin back then, someone had to hold me down when the helicopters took off because the down wash of the rotors threatened to blow me on my ass and possibly off of the ship. Also, while we were doing that, a couple of other squadrons were fueling their birds nearby.

As I said, this jet was coming in unexpectedly because there was some sort of problem and they half-expected a crash onto the deck of the ship, so sirens were going off, people were screaming and yelling for everyone to get off of the flight-line, the fuelers were trying to drag their hoses (about 6-8" round and heavy) off of the flight-line - just total chaos.

My friend and I, along with all the other people on the flight-line were running for the catwalks on either side of the carrier when I tripped over a fuel hose. Losing my balance, I went flying down the stairs and into the arms of someone in the catwalk - if they hadnt caught me, my momentum most likely would have carried me over the railing & off of the ship into the water several stories down.

I posted a few pics I found on-line to give you an idea - none of them are exactly right, though the third is pretty damn close.

The first 2 are of the catwalk on the Connie (both pics are from 1972) - but in different areas of the ship than we were that night so the wall of the catwalk is wrong, but they are still a good spacial reference.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4006/4661775372_cdb385e019_z.jpg

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4020/4498465604_d586c7664b_z.jpg


This third one is from a model of the USS Enterprise - this catwalk is really close to what we were running onto that night, but ours was just a bit narrower (like the other pics) - the stairs and railings instead of walls are what I'm talking about in my story.

http://atomictoasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Enterprise-47-port-catwalk-by-satellite.jpg


The end. :)