It’s Friday night just after 10pm & Eric’s back at work…and not too happy about it.

Somewhere around 7:30pm, he  got a cryptic call saying he needed to notify all his soldiers to come back in for formation.

Formation: Basically just like it sounds. Round everyone up & make them stand there in neat little rows to await further instructions.

He left saying, “Somebody either oughta be dead or we better have lost a bird!”

Bird: Army slang for a helicopter. In this case, the Apaches he’s in charge of maintaining.

This is the second time he’s had to go back into work tonight.

[An Alpha model Apache...not to be confused with the Delta model he works on...not that you care. But I'll get called-out for it if I get it wrong - Army wives are supposed to know these things.]

Well, I just got a call from him a few minutes ago saying he’s still there with no idea on when he’ll be home.

So what made the new commander call everyone back in on Friday night?

A piece of sensitive equipment* is missing from the lock-up.

Yeah…not so good.

So he’ll be there…along with every other soldier in the unit, looking for that ever-allusive equipment*, until they’re found.

Because that’s how they roll, Baby…one screws up, they all screw up.

Truth be told, he’s not missing much.

I’m still working on a client’s design because I finally got on a roll.

And Maggie?…

She’s just hanging-out on the couch…

waiting for daddy & his stinky socks to come back home – again, again.

[Read part 2 here.]

*If you were lucky enough to catch this post when it first went up, then you know what exactly went missing. But things have now progressed. It’s no longer considered just a lost item, it’s now a criminal investigation. So I have to remove all reference to it.