The Clothes Make the Woman

My old boss Stumpy loved mandatory fun. Most of you have had mandatory fun in your careers - required work-related social events held in the name of teambuilding or some such managerial piffle. Most people I know hate mandatory fun because we already have co-worker friends and hang out with them. We don't like being compelled to socialize with co-workers we're not friends with - they're not our friends.

But that is precisely the reason Stumpy enjoyed mandatory fun so much. He didn't have any friends - he used to go on vacations by himself - so he frequently ordered us to hang out with him during work hours. This being the Army, he could do that. So one afternoon, he made me and the other 8 lieutenants in our artillery battery go bowling. Here is that story:

We couldn't just go bowling locally. That wouldn't be "fun enough." We had to drive 80 miles up to Denver to go to a Dave & Buster's-like place. It was like Chuckee Cheese for grownups - video games, bumper cars, and a full bar. It also had a bowling alley, which was our destination.

One of the new lieutenants, Turtle (so named because he was slow of speech and of foot, and also much older than the rest of us) asked in his ponderous tones if he could bring his new fiancee. This surprised us. We weren't surprised that he wanted to bring her, but that he had a fiancee in the first place. He had been single when he arrived a month prior, but had already met someone and gotten engaged. Interesting.

"Sure you can bring her," someone said. So Turtle took off to pick up his fiancee, and the rest of us set off on the hour-plus schlep to Denver.

We arrived at the place and went upstairs to the bowling alley. We exchanged our combat boots for bowling shoes - they really complement the camouflage fatigues - and got down to the business of mandatory fun.

Half an hour or so later, Turtle showed up, his lady in tow. "Hi everyone, this is my fiancee, Candace Kaine," he said. She smiled at us and said, "You can call me Candy."

Wait, Candy? Candy Kaine? I swear I'm not making this up, her name was really Candy Kaine. The rest of us looked at each other just to make sure no one was laughing.

It was hard not to laugh. It wasn't that she was middle-aged - so was Turtle. Her name, of course, was hilarious. What really made it hard not to giggle was her clothes. More precisely, it was her single article of clothing. She was wearing a full-body denim jumpsuit. Clothes say a lot about a woman, and an ankle-to-wrist denim jumpsuit says quite a bit.

First, it told us that she shopped somewhere that sells denim jumpsuits. I don't know where that might be, but Ann Taylor or Banana Republic it's not. Second, when she saw the jumpsuit hanging under those big-box store lights, she thought to herself, 'Oh, that'd look good on me.' She probably tried it on, looked in the mirror, smiled, and couldn't wait to get it home. Third, when Turtle called to say she was going to meet her fiancee's boss and co-workers, she went to her closet and looked inside. I imagine the inner monologue went like this: 'Jeans and a blouse? No. Slacks and a turtleneck? No. Skirt and a sweater? No. Ah, there it is - the denim jumpsuit. That'll impress Turtle's friends. They won't know what hit them.'

So there was Candy Kaine, white-trash-fabulous in her new denim jumpsuit and bowling shoes, ready to hit the lanes. I was fascinated, and invited them to join my lane.

"So, Candy, how'd you meet Turtle," I asked. "Oh, I was waitressing and he sat at one of my tables," Candy said. "I thought he was just the cutest thing in his uniform, so I gave him my number." An idea was forming in my head. "And I hear you're engaged," I said. "Yes. Isn't it great," she beamed. "Turtle is just so great with my kids, I couldn't let this one get away," she said, hugging him to her.

That explained it. Classic Army situation. We call these Instant Families - Just Add Dad. You can find women like Candy living near every military installation. They find new and lonely soldiers, hustle them up the aisle, and get a piece of that government paycheck. They make a baby or two, then, when Dad transfers to another duty station in three years, they file for divorce. They collect alimony until new Dad shows up, then repeat the process. Turtle had been snared in the Instant Family trap - Candy had spotted him at the restaurant, alone and in uniform, and dollar signs flashed in her eyes.

A sad story, really. We deployed to Iraq two months later, by which time Candy Kaine had become Candy Turtle. She collected Turtle's paycheck for the year he was gone, and apparently spent most of it. Then she dropped divorce papers on him the week he got home. She'd met someone else, it seemed - an Air Force officer working at NORAD. I guess he couldn't resist the denim jumpsuit. The end.