top 5 things I'll burn in hell for - #1

It's now time for #1.

I watched 2 Cubans shit their uniforms.

As a young Marine I was selected for "Embassy Duty". I had visions of standing in dress blues in some exotic country and drinking beer with the locals on my off-time. Instead... I found myself in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - aka "Gitmo".

Gitmo in '84 was not a place where you wore dress blues and drank beer with the locals. Instead this meant a year of standing on the fence line, staying out on patrol and trying to find ways of breaking the boredom by jacking with the Cubans to see if they would engage (we tried to see if they would take a shot).

The fence line in Gitmo was a no-mans land, in some areas the distance between us was over 1/2 a mile and filled with the largest minefield in the world. In other areas they were close enough to shout at across the mines.

This particular day, I was standing post very close to the Cubans. Across the mines, in a tower much like mine, stood 2 Cuban regulars (my "mirrors"). As I watched both of them watching me, we started jacking with each other. This usually meant shooting the finger, keying down the mic on their frequency... anything to pass the time.

While watching them very closely through the "Big Eyes" (large binoculars)... with both hands behind my back... a shot went off.

WHAM

Both of them dropped and went out of sight in an instant. I'm still standing, watching their tower. After a few seconds I see one AK-47, then another, then a couple of heads... pretty soon I see them pointing at me. I returned this with a simple wave above the Big Eyes.

Within 5 minutes the scene in front of me contained what might have been half the Cuban army stationed in Gitmo.

After awhile they started to disperse and once again I found myself looking across the mines at the same 2 Cubans, now standing a little lower in their post, looking at me with everything they had. Hope they had a change of clothes on their post because I think they might have needed it by that point.

Guess it's a good thing they didn't have bottles on their head.

Temperature increase in hell for 2 Cubans crapping their utilities and coming close to starting an international incident - an additional 75K degrees and a suit made of phosphorus. Well, maybe just for the international incident part.

I'd love to hear something you might be held in the deep fryer for, share it in the comments!

They carry extra rounds over at HumorBloggers.com, take a trip and tell 'em I sent ya' but drop me some smiley love below first.

top 5 things I'll burn in hell for - #2

Next in the top 5 things I'll burn in hell for... I now come clean on #2:

I burnt down a neighborhood.

As I mentioned in #4 of the things I'll burn in hell for, I lived in South Africa when I was a kid. Apparently living south of the equator doesn't agree with me since #2 also occurred where the water goes backwards when you flush. Maybe it was Apartheid, maybe it was the Zulu's, or the gold mines or the people who clicked when they talked.

Nope, I think it simply rests on the shoulders of a tow-headed kid who had to change his name because his real name meant "girl" in Afrikaans (true).

When I was about 8 I had a fascination with fire, once while trying to burn a pencil I used the couch to hold the pencil so I wouldn't burn my fingers. This resulted in burning up the couch as well - but that's a different story.

I had recently learned how to light a match by pressing it against the matchbox and flicking it, creating a burning flare that shot out like 10 feet. Dude, I was cool.

We had a huge field across from our house, on the day in question I was practicing my new found skill while walking down a path in this huge, dry field.

I walked maybe 200 feet in, flicking matches into the air when I heard an odd whooshing noise behind me. Turning around to make sure it wasn't the Zulu's attacking I saw something that looked much like the picture above roaring up the path towards me. Son-of-a-bitch! If I knew that word when I was 8 I would have used it at that moment as I sprinted towards the far end of the field.

I exited the other end of the field into a neighborhood now filling with people coming out of their houses. Thankfully their attention was fixed on the growing wildfire coming towards them and they didn't notice the scared-to-hell little tow-headed kid sprinting away like his ass was on fire.

I ran until I couldn't see the fire any longer, only the huge billowing smoke rising above the neighborhood and the fire engines racing past me in the other direction.

Thoughts of spending the rest of my life in a South African prison filled my head. Maybe they would put me in a cell next to Nelson Mandela and we could pass notes back and forth and tap on the walls to keep each other going. Well, maybe not.

Amazingly, after spending hours walking in a daze until the smoke died down I returned home to face my public flogging and NOBODY realized I was the arsonist. Turns out I didn't actually burn down any houses, but the field was burnt the hell up and I think astronauts could see it from space.

Temperature for burning down a neighborhood (well almost) - an additional 50K degrees and a backpack full of fertilizer and diesel fuel.

Tomorrow's top 5: the all important #1 - the time I almost caused a war with Cuba.

They don't play with matches over at HumorBloggers.com but their still pretty hot, check 'em out.

top 5 things I'll burn in hell for - #3

Next in the top 5 series of crap I'll burn in hell for... I now come clean on #3:

I almost killed a friend of mine.

Mike, wherever you are now bro... your tank didn't malfunction. That was actually me.

About 10,000 years ago I got really heavy into SCUBA diving while living in Okinawa, Japan. As anyone who has strapped on a BCD and a regulator before knows, the most important thing is your dive buddy. Mine was Mike, Mike was in the Navy but I still hung out with him because he worked in communications and I enjoyed trying to get him to tell me secret shit (he never did but he gave me plenty of hints).

Mike and I were preparing to dive a place called the Toilet Bowl. Yea, I know. Crappy name but it was a great place to dive because the entry and exit was so difficult it was rare to see many other divers there.

One of the steps in preparing for a dive is to do a safety check on each other, check the regulators, the tanks, the consoles... just another pair of eyes looking everything over. While I was checking his tank... I turned it off.

Let me say that again. I turned his damn tank the f$ck off.

I see you looking at me like that, in my defense it was a long walk to the entry point and we always did another safety check before making the leap. I thought I'd catch it on the next stop and give him shit about how he left his tank off. Man, that would be so cool...

Sometimes the smartass in me escapes the little box I keep it locked in and does crap I can't be held accountable for.

Well, remember when I said it was such a great dive spot because the entry was hard? Not only was it hard to get to, you had to judge the swell and jump in just at the right moment to ride the wave down about 15-20 feet. As we are walking to the entry point we got separated and to be honest I kinda forgot about the tank deal since I was concentrating on staying upright while walking across the coral. Mike gets there first and without hesitation he judges the swell and leaps into the water - straight to the bottom... with zero air.

It was then I found out it's possible to crap in a wetsuit.

I ran and jumped in right after him and got his tank turned back on. You should have seen the look on his face by that point, utter confusion and totally pissed off. We both came to the surface and the first thing he does after ripping off his mask is to start screaming about the quality of the tanks we had rented. I guess he didn't notice I had crapped my suit.

I never told him what actually happened that day. I'm sure to this day he thinks those crappy tanks went out on him right as he jumped. I shook uncontrollably for a week.

Temperature increase for jacking with my buddy's tank - an additional 25K degrees and a kerosene bath.

Tomorrow's top 5: #2 - the time I burned down a neighborhood.

They won't let you jump in with a dead tank over at HumorBloggers.com, check 'em out. They would love to go down with ya.

top 5 things I'll burn in hell for - #4

Next in the top 5 series of crap I'll burn in hell for... I now come clean on #4:

I shot bottles off the head of strangers as they walked by.

As a kid I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa (this was during the un-plugged apartheid version of South Africa during the mid 70's). My dad says he was an electrical engineer who was there to setup TV, but we know it was actually because he was in the CIA and he still won't come clean on that. My little brother was born there, I call him my African American brother.

Since my dad was there to setup a TV station (yea, right), that meant they didn't have TV there in the mid 70's. No Brady Bunch, no Gilligan's Island... nada.

So what does a kid do if they can't soak their brain with TV for 8 hours a day? Hone their shooting skills of course. Skills that would come in handy for me later in life, but that's a different story.

I had a friend who lived across the street, we'll call him Trevor (cause that was his name). Trevor had access to a pellet gun, which by itself was a bad thing because in today's world Trevor would be in a special school riding the short bus. Let's just say Trevor was a few cards short of full deck. No, let's just say Trevor was full-on batshit crazy. We got along great.

Women in South Africa at the time (and I guess even today) carried crap on their head. I don't know how this got started but I'm sure it had something to do with that clicking sound they made when they talked. When I say they carried crap, I mean they carried all kinds of things on their head - including empty bottles which I assume they were taking back to the store for a refund. The perfect target in my 9 year old mind.

Trevor and I had setup a little snipers nest in the backyard of a house a few doors down that had a perfect view on the main street and we would wait for our targets to appear.

After waiting in silence with a fully loaded, cocked and ready pellet gun, our target would appear - a women walking with several bottles on her head not more than 30 feet from us. Shhh, be veddy, veddy quiet...

POP... WHAM.... CRASH.... SCREAM...

Before you judge, consider the skill required to hit a moving target on the top of someone's head with a pellet gun. Also consider the skill to run like hell afterwards to escape the wrath of a lady who was screaming like a banshee, that is if a banshee made clicking noises when they talked.

One lesson learned from this activity, wait a little bit to ensure the target wasn't being escorted by a guy. The odds of escape after the shot is much less if this is the case.

Temperature for shooting crap off people's head - an additional 10K degrees and a container of propane.

Tomorrow is #3 - the time I almost killed a friend of mine.

They shoot crap off your head over at HumorBloggers.com - give 'em a try.

top 5 things I'll burn in hell for

Sorry guys, been underwater for a bit but I did a few safety stops to make sure I didn't get the bends and now I'm back on the surface (for all you non divers out there... sorry). I'm back

I've been thinking about some of the things I've done in the past (and now...) that will cause them to turn up the heat a little bit in hell upon my arrival. Yea, I know there are supposed to be 2 options on where you go and the other one can even include like 70 virgins if you change your name to Mohammad, but I have a t-shirt that says Marines don't die, we just go to hell to regroup - so I'm going with that and if it gets better so be it.

Top 5 things I'll burn in hell for - #5: Jacking with my grandmother.

My grandmother sends me pepper about once a month. It's not some kinda special pepper, I'm talking about plain ole ground black pepper. The kind you can find at a gas station or get in a little package from Sonic.

Why would she do that? Because she knows I like pepper and maybe at one point I told her we can't get that type of pepper here in Texas. Ok, fine. The truth is I tell her each time she sends it that we still can't get it here even though she gets it from WalMart and there is a WalMart about .2 miles from my front door.

So, every month or so I get a specially wrapped package from Oklahoma with a very large container of black pepper. Our spice cabinet now contains enough black pepper to last us a few years but I can't stop. I'm expecting another soon and I've already cleared out a little spot for it.

Temperature increase for jacking with a nice old lady - an additional 5K degrees and a cup of gasoline.

Tomorrow's top 5: # 4 - I used to shot bottles off of the head of strangers as they walked by.

Great to be back in the real world - I missed ya'll.