⊰ Flambé ⊱

During my military service, I was riding on one of my connection buses on the way to the base.
To stay awake, I listened to the conversations around me. Don’t judge me - it was back when mobile phones were bulky bricks only used for calls (a revolutionary concept), and I didn’t even have one.

Near Tzrifin, a soldier got on the bus, recognized another soldier, and sat next to him. It seemed like they had gone through basic training or a course together and hadn’t seen each other since.

Soldier A (add "bro" after every word, as they were speaking fluent "soldier-ese"):
“How are you? What’s up?”
Soldier B (in a depressed tone): “Don’t ask.”

Soldier A: “What happened?!”
(Me: I didn’t say anything but thought: he just told you not to ask.)
Soldier B: “I’m screwed. There’s a trial, and I’m on my way to military prison.”
Soldier A: ?!?!?!
(I was sitting behind them, so I couldn’t see his face, but you could practically see the question marks and exclamation marks above his head.)

Soldier B:
“I was smoking on base. The sergeant major caught me and gave me punishment duty to paint his office.
So I painted the office, and of course, I smoked while doing it.
When I noticed the sergeant major approaching (uh-oh),
I immediately threw the cigarette into a bucket of water that was there.
Except…it wasn’t water; it was diesel fuel. The bucket caught fire. I kicked the bucket, (sh!t)
and it turns out the freah-paint on the wall was also flammable. The sergeant major arrived just in time to see his office FLAMBE.” (F*ccccck!)

With every sentence of the story, you could feel the situation escalates. By then, I was wide awake.
Everything is relative. If he thought being caught smoking again by the sergeant major was bad at first…