A Midsummer POP dream

It's touching to hear everyone's touching POP stories. Mine didn't turn out so perfectly. Everything was fine up till the point when we were about to march in. I had never hated the CAT 1 siren (thunderstorm warning siren) until then. We sought shelter in the training shed, whined and complained for about half-an-hour, and just as they asked us to return to our Coy line, the rain stopped.

For me it was a blessing in disguise. Being the chao on OCS wannabe I used to be (you can't be a pilot unless your'e an officer, you see), I was running around clearing rubbish, helping people with their packing (you'd be surprised how much stuff a recruit needs even during his last week in Tekong) and trying to be everywhere at once, since I was one of the few dumbos who changed into Smart 4 more than an hour before the parade. Unfortunately, I have a very bad habit of always leaving one item upstairs in my bunk whenever I fall in (a habit I failed to kick throughout my OCS term), and on that day this item happened to be my jockey cap *cue gasps from audience*

Went back to Charlie Coy line, sent arms, prepared to throw our jockey caps at Coy line, then I realised mine was still on the clothes hook upstairs. My sergeant nearly twisted my head off.

---------

My commissioning parade wasn't much better. I didn't collapse, but I was so tense I screwed up 2 homats, hoepfully not too noticeably. And I stuck my chin up too high during the slow march, couldn't see less than 2m in front of me, didn't dare to tilt my head down, and... missed the first step in the flight of stairs. Doh.