Bag some traps?
Bag some traps?!?
Surely you jest!!
Of course not! Of course the JOPA had way too much time on our hands and as Asst Ops, I wrote the schedule such as it was, but our OinC was a LCDR who abused his role to direct me to put him in primo spots. I was keeping track of traps to spread the wealth and he was way ahead. When I brought it up to him, he said that was a privilege of rank and he worked so hard to get where he got and it was a just reward. Sooo, that got us into plot/revenge/sting mode. First, I approached the Ship OPS O who was our former CO and laid out a scenario to which he agreed and did his part. Whenever, the BAGEX was initiated, his jet would start but be taxiied into a spot where he could watch everyone else. That fixed the spreading of the wealth. He even called the Boss on the radio whining to our great delight, but the Pièce de résistance was
The Sting.
I had the OPS O call him and ask if he could use our Ready Room for Ship's CO (Snuffy Smith) to assemble the Det from all the squadrons and have a Celebratory Cake for those who made Centurion and thank everyone for their particpation. Our favorite LCDR loved facetime and when we had earlier suggested having a Det party so we could give out patches, he said "Oh no, I want mine from the Captain!" So we designed a sting that gave him exactly that and he really took the bait, hook, line and sinker thinking he'd be up close and personal with the the big guy.
Outside our JOPA, we only told the Air Wing OinC and LSO what was going on as we prepped the Ready Room for the event. It was hard not to laugh as he summoned the 1st Lieutenant folks to buff the floor and kept haranguing the JOs who were lounging in Ready Room with "The Captain's coming, we've got to make this place look good!". We started using Paul Newman's secret signal from the
The Sting (finger alonside nose and saluting motion) to each other across the Ready Room every time we caught him getting worked up for the big event.
I arranged for a cake and CAG Paddles to award patches so it was the real deal except Captain never knew about it, only the OPS O (I arranged for our favorite SWO JO who was same size as "Snuffy" to fill in for the captain). We enlisted help of HS-7 Coffee Mess to provide popcorn in massive quantities (they had a movie theatre sized popcorn machine that they used to sell bags to all comers).
One of our pilots was a former USNA football lineman who liked to tease a HS-7 pilot who was equal in size so it was natural to have them start laying a smackdown on each other. Several key JOs then started throwing popcorn so that the air was a blizzard just as Captain was supposed to show. The room went from sedate to absolute anarchy in seconds. Everything went down according to plan and our LCDR went absolute bonkers. Our target didn't know which way to turn. I was on phone with our surrogate to alert him when to burst into Ready Room and ask what the hell was going on.
When the popcorn started flying and covered the floor, he snagged a pushbroom and was trying to shout orders to knock it off while he tried to clear the aisleway (in vain as 2 JOs were behind him filling in the path with more popcorn). When he got to front of room, I made the phonecall and the CAG LSO yelled "Attention on Deck!" as the door opened. So there he was standing at attention facing forward with pushbroom at his side like a rifle. The room was now silent except for the crunch, crunch of the surrogate captain making his way through the sea of popcorn to front of the room. From the back, he looked just like the captain and was wearing long sleeved khakis that Snuffy favored.
It wasn't until our favorite SWO, Vinny, whirled around that anyone knew it wasn't the Captain. A couple of LDOs who came for the party quickly exited wanting no part of what they thought would happen next. Our surrogate clapped his hands and said Captain had been detained on the bridge and sent him in his place (he even had an OOD hat on). Our ''mark" didn't respond and was still at attention with veins on his forehead pulsating and face beet red like he was in shock. Finally, the CAG LSO shook him and said "Hey, you've been
had, don't you get it?" He then collapsed in his chair muttering something as we formed up the Centurions for a group shot. As he was one of the Centurions, the two football players had to hoist him to his feet to stand for the picture with the other centurions. Not sure he ever recovered or ever ate popcorn again.
Another case of why it isn't wise to piss off the JOPA.
