The Dayton Dilemma: When doing the right thing, isn't the right thing ... by Dave Ives

Author:Dave Ives [Ives, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2021-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter ten

Officer Hinton

I’m not telling you what to do, but, if I were you, I’d stay away from that place; got a very bad reputation.

Pushing the hot electric iron back and forth over my collared, short sleeve, light blue air force shirt, I heard the phone ring. I walked over to the phone lifted the receiver handle just high enough to stop the ringing, then placed it back down thinking, ‘morning wake up call.’ I had a deal going with the Travelodge folks to give me a wakeup call at six a.m. Monday through Friday.

I remember the first morning wake up call, rolling over in bed, grabbing the phone saying, “Hello Sean here,” then I heard the automated message, ‘This is your wakeup call, blah, blah, blah.’ After that, I developed a new ‘pick up and hang up’ routine - no more answering. And this morning is no different except I happened to get up early and therefore no need for the wakeup call.

After folding the ironing board, placing it back in the closet along with the iron, I continued getting ready for work. My freshly ironed shirt, proudly displayed on a clothes hanger dangling from the closet door, needed some add-ons. First, my blue with white block letters ‘MITCHELL’ nametag. I lined it up and centered it over the right shirt pocket holding it in place with two backing clips unofficially known as ‘frogs.’ Then I attached my ‘officer trainee’ shoulder boards to the shirt collar epaulets.

I tucked my light blue shirt into my dark blue air force dress pants and then began the process of ‘belt buckle alignment.’ Here’s the drill as taught to me at air force basic training. First, line up the vertical shirt button line with the pants zipper line. Then align the left edge of the metal belt buckle with vertical shirt and zipper line. I believed in ‘belt buckle alignment.’ So much that it bothered me seeing civilians wearing ‘unaligned’ belt buckles! I had to hold myself back from confronting them, ‘Hey, what’s with the crooked buckle line.’ Even wearing civilian clothes, I still ‘buckle aligned.’ This detail goes a long way in demonstrating my ‘buy-in’ to the air force way of life.

I sat on the unmade hotel bed and put on my official black air force approved socks, then laced up my spit shined polished air force black shoes. Finally, I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the door leading out to the hallway.

I placed my right hand on the doorknob, gave it a turn causing it to unlock and pulled so I could make my exit. I took one step into the Travelodge hallway and heard a whisper-yell, “What are you doing? Get back in your room!”

Dazed, I turned my head upwards and left towards the sound. I took a moment to work out the bizarre scene before me, a pistol held up by two hands and one eyeball peeking around the corner.

I received a second whisper-yell from the pistol, hands

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