Motor Pool Mayhem

There is just something about playing small pranks on people. The kinds of pranks that are make the person fill silly when they find out. Being in the military people play pranks on each other often, however, not as often as those in the motor pool. In the motor pool it is a silent understanding that everyone is in on the prank weather or not it was discussed before hand, everyone just plays along. I have spent a few years, and with a few different groups of people, and there are always targets readily available for a good laugh. I will tell you about a few of the more interesting occurrences within the motor pool. First, I have to explain a bit, just like any good maintenance area, we have to have samples tested. These samples are mostly, oil, and fuels of different types, to see how polluted they are and how they are working inside of the vehicles. Each vehicle is different so we take samples of all the vehicles at various times through out the year. Most of these stories take place in Washington State, the Rainy State, and so remember there is a lot of water there. Also remember I was a recovery specialist, but I also did general maintenance for a couple hundred operators.

On fine brisk morning, I had a simple ‘quick fix’ for a humvee, the blinker like had gone out and needed to be replaced. I had a new operator standing overhead watching me as I unscrewed the cover to the light. When I broke the seal about a half cup of water came pouring out of the cavity. I cursed and the operator asked what was wrong, I stated ‘Just lost the Blinker Light Fluid’ and I asked him to go to the Fuel Handler to get some more. So the operator goes running off to the main bay to find the Fuel Handler and get more ‘Blinker Light Fluid’. Remember how I said, ‘Everyone is in on it’, well the Fuel Handler got a small bottle filled with water and red colouring and passed it off to the operator to bring to me. In the mean time I was cleaning out the rust of the cavity and replacing the bulb. When the operator came back to me and handed me the red liquid I looked at him like he was a moron and said as much. ‘Dude, what are you doing, you seriously think I can use this?’ He got a perplexed look on his face and looked at the cavity I was working on. Then I chimed in with ‘Look, you see this is RED! I needed the Orange, for the Blinker not the Tail Light!’ Tossed him back the bottle and he was stated ‘Oh, Ok’ and ran off to get the correct colour. On his way back he saw a group of soldiers laughing while looking his direction. He stopped, looked at me, which I had finished and was leaning against the truck with a million dollar smile, looked at his hand, looked at another vehicle, than yelled ‘YOU A****LE!’ At this point everyone around just burst into hysterical laughter, even the operator started laughing at himself. He told me that he was wondering about it, but when I said the bit about the wrong colour he forgot to question it.

On a completely different day, I told an operator we needed a sample from his 5-ton truck. Operator said ok, what sample, I stated we needed an exhaust sample and he said ‘Ok’, and walked away. I thought to myself, bummer the fish didn’t bite. About a half hour later, I had the shop foreman come up to me and ask if I told an operator to get an exhaust sample. I said I did, and he just busted out laughing, said it was the funniest prank he has heard/seen. I told him ‘Huh? I thought the operator didn’t bite.’ He told me to follow him. So we walked out onto the line and he pointed to the far end, and I saw something billowing above a truck. We walked over, and the operator spotted me and stated ‘Sorry it’s taking so long I had to find someone to help.’ He was standing on the roof of his truck with a black hefty bag wrapped around the stakes and another operator inside pressing down the gas petal to create an ‘exhaust sample’. I waved and said, ‘Take your time, and just bring it in when you are done.’ I then turned and quickly walked away trying to hide my tears of laughter.

I had also worked with a few construction-vehicle mechanics, one such mechanic, I told we needed to fix the dozer blade. That is the huge steel sheet on the front of a bull dozer. I handed her a hammer and told her, to hit the metal, and that she needs to circle all of the spots that are soft so we can fix them. The soft spots sound different. I than walked away and left her to her own accord. Now she was trained as a construction-vehicle mechanic, and I assumed she just shook her head and went to find something else to do. However, when I came back into the bay over an hour later, I found several small circles, not only on the blade but on other parts of the dozer as well. She walked up to me and asked what the next step was, I (trying not to laugh) told her to contact 3rd shop to have someone come out and verify the spots and see what was needed for the fix. Within fifteen minutes we had someone in the bay looking over the dozer. Normally, it takes a couple hours to get someone from 3rd shop into our bays, however, later I was told they couldn’t believe what they heard and had to come as quick as possible. (Remember, everyone is in on it.) Needless to say, 3rd shop, lolled around the dozer, hap-hazardly tapping a few of the spots with a hammer. Then he exclaimed; ‘This is the most tore up dozer I have ever seen.’ ‘Get me the soldier who found all of these soft spots.’ She took a step forward proudly and announced it was her. The guy from 3rd shop looked at her and burst out laughing, between his laughter he asked, how she expected them to fix the single cast pieces. She looked around between us, and I started cracking a smile at that point, she than looked at the dozer and stated ‘You guys Suck!’ Then she herself started laughing and asked who else we can play the prank to.

There are lots of other things we have done; we once had a soldier look all over the post for chemical light batteries. Those are the little plastic lights you break to mix the chemicals together which cause it to glow. We have had Officers looking for boxes of grid squares and spools of final firing line and others looking for 20 mph tape. Lots and lots of just made-up names for tools that didn’t exist and locations that always led to the same place. There where few who caught on straight away, but they were very few indeed. Also, if someone who was not apt at ‘pranking’ pranked someone and they caught it, it became more difficult for others. But, from my experience, you can prank anyone. I hope you had a good laugh at a couple of my adventures. Thanks for listening.