The Navy Ball - Tizzy

I'll have to state this repeatedly, but Brett and I are friends. We're going to the Ball as two friends, and really the only reason that even suggests that it would work is because it's a military function and we're both military. We have a conceivable reason to show up there, and it's more fun to do something like this with a friend than alone.

Guys, this may not be clear to you. I will translate. If you're going to a dance, or a wedding, or anything fun and dress-up worthy with a girl, she is most likely going to think it's a date. Even if she asked you. Even if both of you have said it's just as friends. Even if she wants to think of it as just friends - unless she's really not attracted to you, and the only way you'll get that is if she spends most of the time there talking about some other guy. I don't think of Brett as a boyfriend, and I was excited about this.

Really, we just like to make ourselves pretty and be told that we're pretty.

As soon as Brett was gone, I shyly announced to Adam (possibly the only person on base who will ever see me acting shy, because shy normally gets you stomped) that I was going to the Navy Ball.

I got back to my barracks, and made a request to my two roommates, who spend far more time making pretty than I do, that they help me with my hair and makeup the day of the Ball. Excited squeals from the one, and an assured smile from the other - they've both regarded my dateless status with some quiet dismay over the past six months. (I'm just a little selective - my sister has expressed (with some hyperbole) a certain refined disgust with my standards. Also, I am in school. Busy busy.).

It should be noted; this is not my first element. Do I enjoy prettying up and being pretty for a night? Yes, actually. But it happens so rarely that I usually don't remember. MY first element is hiking boots, rugged jeans, and a hoodie, climbing over hills, trees, and leaves in the fall. Possibly running shoes and beating the trail. I belong in the woods, to my thinking, and require assistance for such affairs.

There was also a point of consternation when the date was clarified. Seems someone had set the Ball to be on Friday, not Saturday. As it doesn't start until 1730, this is only an issue for the 150-200 students in ET "A", and a scatter from ATT - there are no other night students on base. Brett at this point was on days, so I sadly admitted that he would probably have to ask someone else to go with him.

Well, he's having none of this. A week before the date, my instructor says he's 90% sure we won't have class that night. This is the Navy for you. We just kind of prepare for either possibility as much as we can. Brett and I actually haven't seen each other in about three weeks; most of our planning by this point has been by text, because I can jot something to him when I get home before bed, and he'll get it when he wakes up four hours later.

Days Nights
Reveille 0500 0900
Class 0700-1530 1530-2400
Taps 2200 0100

You see the problem.

Brett, meanwhile, has been given the royal runaround on the tickets - this is also Navy, or at least TSC, for you. Go to this office, to talk to this person, to be told you actually need to talk to THAT person in the third building, to go to that building, to find out they're closed, to return to your SDC and find that they told you wrong and never meant for you to end up on that side of the base, but by now the situation's changed and now it doesn't matter what they meant to tell you, because NOW they need you to go over here. He didn't mention this to me, which was an unfortunate glitch in communication, because the SDC in charge of this one was actually in MY barracks.

We've been told that, prior to the introduction of computers on base, all hands ended up walking more than five miles a day thanks to this sort of thing. There is NO driving from place to place here. Live-Ashores drive to the base, and park by their barracks if it's convenient, but if you're not injured and it takes less than forty-five minutes to walk there, you have no reason to drive.

Brett's a Fleet Returnee. This affords him more time to work with and much less hassle about needing a buddy to go anywhere. Brett's actually ignoring the status thing this time around - the fact that he has as much time in as he does, and I'm six months out of Boot Camp makes this a little like a senior asking a freshman to prom. We're the same age, but that's because Brett joined as soon as he was out of high school. He's passed the test to go to E-4 two or three times now, but advancement is based on how things are in your rate - if they're packed full enough that they're sending people to other rates, they're not going to be promoting. If he HAD made it to E-4, the two of us going to the Ball together would be a little sketchy - if he was E-5, it'd be right out.

Meanwhile, my nervousness is mounting. I was thinking that the Ball was going to be later in October - I've been planning a trip home for a friend's wedding, and was thinking that I could simply pick up one of my former prom dresses and shoes then. I honestly hate clothes shopping, and somehow keep having other projects crop up on the weekends when I could go.

My nervousness turns out to be for naught - the first part of the evening is supposed to be in dinner dress blues. Service dress, full dress, and dinner dress are all exactly the same uniform - the distinction is in how the decorations are worn. Any current photos of me in dress uniform are in service dress - full dress would be with the full-sized medal(s). Dinner dress uses miniature medals that have to be picked up separately, and the NEX is cleaned out of the particular one that both Brett and I need (he has four to my one).

Fun story there, though. We're perusing the shelves, and a very nice lieutenant overhears us. This is a fun bit of Navy culture y'might not see much of as a civilian: Officers are usually really nice. Higher enlisted will sometimes be jerks because they have to be - they're getting leaned on, so they have to lean on us. Officers are as separate from us as the people are from the giraffes in the zoo. And where a Petty Officer would probably have gotten on our cases about getting our medals earlier (I had gone earlier, and they were still out), this wonderful lieutenant said that she might have an extra in her car, because she kept all kinds of things in her car. And ran out to check.

This kind of stunned us. But, it ended with Brett having the proper medals, and me completely milking the bragging rights to the other girls out of his earshot - he has a rating badge as an AM (most of us are still in school, so there's no rate on our sleeves, just the E-2 or E-3 stripe), he has his medals, AND he has a hashmark on his sleeve (one hashmark = four years of service. At 12 consecutive years of good service, they turn gold). Yep, this is effectively the Navy Prom.

Even the day of, before we got the tickets (thanks to the royal runaround), Brett was asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this. Am I sure I want to hang out with Brett? Yes, absolutely. Am I sure about the Ball? Well...honestly, I wouldn't mind if it turned out we couldn't get tickets and we just went bowling instead. I'm fairly nervous at this point. But, I have also learned that when I'm terrified of something for no good reason, that's all the more reason to go do it. Brett's a good guy, we're taking the shuttle so driving's likely to be fairly safe, and while I could manage to fantastically embarass myself, nothing at the Ball is likely to mess up my life or my career. I might not get the chance to go to another one, as I'm on sea duty for the rest of this enlistment, so, I say, let's go for it.