I own an Ipod. The little device that allows you to store over 200 CDs in the palm of your hand. The first time down to Antarctica I brought this little unit with me and I thought it would completely revolutionize my time in Antarctica. In fact, it did. The songs on my Ipod became the soundtrack to my chilly season.
Bringing an Ipod was a great idea. But, bringing an accessory that comes along with the Ipod was a bad idea. On long road trips, the Ipod battery will lose its charge, so the little accessory that plugs into your cigarette lighter to keep the songs flowing as you’re cruising down the highway was the most useless item I brought with me to Antarctica. Well, that and a bathing suit.
Before I left for Antarctica I had visions of going on long icy road trips along the tundra hunting polar bears. Since the battery in my Ipod can last six to eight hours, I really dreamed big of getting time off from the dish room and driving for hours on end. As it turns out, in the entire 14 months I was here washing dishes, I probably spent a total of two hours in a motorized vehicle. And that’s only because the airport is about a half hour from town.
For 14 months this little cigarette lighter device I kept in the top desk drawer back in my dorm room spoke to me each time I saw it, and it said: You’re retarded. Road trips? You had no clue what to expect when you first came to Antarctica.
I’m back and I’m no longer a Fingy (F-ing New Guy). I’m not quite an OAE (Old Antarctic Explorer) but I do have Ice Time (the amount of time you brag about to let a Fingy know how much they suck). Having over 15 months of Ice Time now means #1 I’M NO LONGER A FINGY DISHWASHER and #2 I barely had to pack a bag to arrive in Antarctica. Are you experienced? Well you bet your ass I am.
The first time down I paid the airline extra amounts of cash for the four oversized bags I checked. This time: One carry on. One bag checked. And when I was at home packing, the greatest item that gave me pleasure not to pack was my Ipod cigarette power cord. Not packing this cord showed I had Ice Time. Not packing the cord meant I knew there weren’t roads paved with gold and ice leading to the South Pole. Not packing the cord meant I was not retarded.
Have I mentioned I love my job? It’s like I spent 14 months in Hell and then was reincarnated in India as a Cow.
I still have my Ipod and I listen it to it often. Not as much as I’d like, but often enough. And then, five days ago I got a package from Ruth. She sent an I-Trip. This little piece of space age technology lets me listen to my Ipod while I drive the delivery truck around station. Pens and pencils, boxes of paper and lots and lots of Central Supplies. That’s my job. Central Supply and I’m essential in my Central Supply truck.
The I-Trip is trippy. It takes the Ipod music and plays it through the truck stereo.
The first day I used the I-Trip I rocked Antarctica like a hurricane. Well, at least I did for about five minutes, because that’s only as long as the battery lasted in my Ipod outside in the cold truck as the I-Trip sucked the life from my music machine.
Oh, sure I knew cold wore down the batteries, but this I-Trip is amazing with the amount of power it takes to power it up. If the Ipod is fully charged, I can usually make all of my deliveries as long as I drive 55. But, I can’t drive 55. The speed limit in Antarctica is 15 mph.
Trying to come up with a way to make the battery power last in Ipod, I searched my room. In the drawer, in the closet and under the bed, because I knew somewhere I had this little device with a cord that attached to a plug that fit into a cigarette lighter. I could remember seeing it in Antarctica, but I couldn’t find it in my room.
Antarctica: The Place Where Your Short Term Memory is Shit
It took awhile, but I remembered the great joy I had not packing the cigarette lighter-plugging device on this trip back to Antarctica. Oh the pleasure I had knowing this time my Ice Time would accumulate without an inanimate device taunting my retarded polar knowledge. And, once again, I have no clue what to expect in Antarctica.
One guy snores so loud he has had four different roommates. It’s rumored he also beats his head against his bed board all night long, yelling profanities and swearing at the cold.
Walking through the galley is like reading the Variety Gossip pages, except instead of reading about the dirty laundry, the information is passed from word of mouth. And, instead of celebrities who live only on big screens, small screens or on the radio these people are right in front of you—eating without washing their hands after they’ve “dropped the kids off at the pool.”
The rumors are what we talk about and we never don’t have anything to talk about. The rumors run so rampant they deserve the double negative because rumors are rarely positive.
Did you know the South Pole has the flu? I’ve heard over, close to or exactly 50% of everyone on station has the flu. Their temperatures are running 103 and their foreheads are melting the polar ice cap.
Flu vaccines. Schmlu vaccines.
When it’s negative 50 outside do you really think a bottle of incubated, do not freeze, cultured, antibiotic will take the pressure off of living at 9,301 feet above sea level on an ice cube? They tried, oh yeah they tried to get flu vaccine to the South Pole, but guess what? The vaccine caught its death from pneumonia. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
McMurdo is next. It’s like watching the Evian Bird Flu (is this the disease parrots get when their overly loving owners only nourish them with bottled water?), malaria, or SARS gets transported around the world.
McMurdo is the JFK, Charles DeGaulle, John Wayne, Dulles or O’Hare of Antarctica. McMurdo has the busiest airport on an entire continent. Granted this means, one, two or four flights a day and the air traffic controller is also a janitor (at least that’s what I’ve heard), but when those flights come in from down south and these disease ridden people mingle with this little Petri dish we call McMurdo, the entire town could come down with a fever of one hundred and three. Cat scratch fever.
What I’ve heard, though, is the flu is the least of our worries. Think about it. This is a population flown in from all over the world. Diseases migrate here like it’s their trip to Mecca.
One guy has already been kicked off this continent because he had malaria and there are two people resting in medical because they have mono. I know who these people are, and I’d tell you, I suppose if you asked me personally, man to man or mano a mano (if you will). However, online I’m not inclined to kiss and tell.
We’re out of olives and soon we will be out of paper towels. Which works out great because this means we won’t need to wipe our hands after eating an olive pizza. Oh, I’ve heard we’re also almost out of cheese.
The rumor has it last year when McMurdo was supplied by what is called “The Vessel.” They opened up the ship that brought us all of our supplies and the ship was half empty. When you’re relying on supplies, there wasn’t an optimist on this iceberg to call the ship half full.
Apparently whoever did the ordering forgot to open up a “tab” in their Excel program (note: there are a lot of variations in this story. Often the tab that wasn’t opened was the “Meat” tab, the “Staple Items” tab or the “Essential Things You Need So You Don’t Freeze Your Ass Off” tab, but the constant is always the word “Tab”).
This tab which wasn’t opened means the food sucks this year. The trucks don’t have tires. The sky isn’t blue and some guy got promoted for saving lots of money on this year’s Vessel Shipment. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
Well, I’ve got to go Sir Edmund Hillary and Tom Cruise are flying into town today to recreate the climbing of Mt. Everest for an upcomming scene in Mission Impossible 4. They will be accompanied by flying pixies and Tom Cruise is going to be roommates with the guy who snores, apparently after leaving Nicole Kidman, Tom really misses the guttural sounds of sleep apnea. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
“I’ll be back,” that’s what Arnold Schwarzenegger said in The Terminator and he meant it.
“I’ll never be back,” that’s what I said about Antarctica and I meant it.
When I finished my 2002-2003 14 month stint as a Dishwasher in McMurdo, I burnt my blue shirt, pureed my chefwear pants and flung my non-latex gloves into construction debris. With more absolute determination than that girlie man Arnold, I’m here to tell you, I meant it when I said, “I’ll never be back.”
Guess what Mr. Governor—I’m Back. What are you going to do? Impeach me.
Never. Not in my lifetime. Or in the lifetime of any item lost, petrified or frozen on this continent did I plan to return to Antarctica. And that my friends, is the problem, I said, “Never.”
It’s as though if you look up the word “Never” in the nearest Antarctica dictionary the definition would say: 1. Certainly 2. You bet. 3. Can’t wait.
If there were an English to Antarctica/Antarctica to English phrase book, the sentence “I’LL NEVER BE BACK.” Would translate to, “See you next season!” The clichéd phrase, “I’ll only come back when Hell freezes over” would mean the Devil was dressed in thermal insulated Carharts and his heat burnt red skin was replaced with a Raytheon issued Big Red Parka.
One minute I’m landing in Christchurch, New Zealand on board a C-17 after spending about 13 months too long as Madge the Dishboy saying “Never again,” and the next minute it’s as though the New York Air Guard did a touch and go and brought me right back for another season.
“I’ll never see you again, Antarctica” was quickly replaced with “I’ll C-17 you soon.”
After landing on the ice runway I was whisked to the National Science Foundation Chalet for the “Welcome To Antarctica” speech, “Here’s a Thousand Ways for you to Die.” Since the “whisking” took place on Ivan the Terra Bus—a slow moving big wheeled version of mass transit Antarctic style. I had plenty of time to reflect on why I was never, ever going to return to McMurdo and I drew a blank.
I looked at the volcano, Mt. Erebus. The lake of lava at the top of the Erebus was pluming a long streaking mist of steam across the sky. She was absolutely beautiful, for this reason alone, I should never had said, “never.” The cross on Ob Hill spoke to me of the history and the challenges others have seen in these parts, soon I thought I’ll climb to that cross and apologize for prematurely saying goodbye. The Royal Society Mountains were majestic. And McMurdo was McMurdo.
A winter over friend once described this little town of McMurdo in the darkness of noon as looking like “an all night truck stop in Nebraska.” Well, this stop was now going to be home, again.
Even though I’d made the decision to come back to McMurdo many months ago, McMurdo hadn’t made peace with my return. Our safety manager saw me and said he thought it was a safe bet I’d never return. The electricians were shocked to see me, the mechanics at the heavy shop dropped their tranny’s when I passed by, the carpenters were bored with my return, the BFC said BFD you’re back and a plumber said, “Oh crap, we’re knee deep in it now.”
Hey, it’s not just me. I’m seeing people who I thought I’d never see again. Around the station I’ve run into a couple of friends who, after spending six months in the dark said, “Never again.”
We had joy. We had fun. We had seasons in the sun. And then one really long, long winter.
The last time I was here I felt like I was watching the worst reality TV show ever imagined, but it was my life. I washed dishes for 14 months.
The thrill of living at the bottom of the world disappeared after watching the 1,143rd drain spin counter clockwise in a windowless room 10 hours a day.
I’ve left dishes in my apartment sink for nearly as long as I worked as a dishwasher because of a hatred for all things Palmolive, dishpan hands, suds and hard work. If I knew then what I knew now, when I left Antarctica I would have said, “I’ll be back.
“BUT—This time.”
“Wash your own damn dishes.”
Welcome Back. If you want to catch up on the old stories start at the earlier dates and work your way forward. Watch my mind and body disintegrate right before your very eyes.
Then, stay tuned, soon I'll be posting stories of Antarctica Part II "Dishwasher No More"
If you thought it was fun to suffer along with me while I did the worst job in the world, well, now you can read along and celebrate while I work at the bottom of the world in a job I actually love: Part time Wal-Mart Greeter, Part time delivery, and some time Truck Driver (this is the part I love--breaker breaker one nine).
Until tomorrow,
Over and Out