This is too true!

[chrisw31]

You know you've been Army Institutionalised when...

• You use target indication to point out hot chicks
• You use the term 'chicks'
• You insist on dancing like a dick, whilst your civvie mates insist on trying to dance 'properly'
• Your civvie mates don't understand any of the terminology you use such as no dramas', 'squared away', 'take a knee' etc
• You can't help saying "Roger", "Say again" and other snappy bits of VP
• You use acronyms thinking your civvie mates will understand what you are talking about
• You don't have any civvie mates
• You cringe, and mutter under your breath 'haircut', when you see men with`long hair
• You walk at a ridiculous pace and are physically incapable of walking at the shopping pace of your girlfriend
• You refer to personal organisation as "admin"
• Your girlfriend is stored in your mobile phone address book as 'Zero Alpha'
• You use patrol hand signals in a night club if people can't hear you
• You always use the 24 hour clock
• Nothing soldiers do shocks you any more
• You can't watch war movies without giving a running commentary
• People in prison have more contact with women than you do
• You don't trust your mum/wife/girlfriend/any woman to iron your kit because deep down you think that your ironing is better
• You point using your whole hand in a karate chop motion
• You find that the conversation somehow always comes back round to you, because you're more interesting than most topics of conversation
• You think not shaving is a treat
• You get really irritated when people you don't know call you mate'
• You can read a junk mail catalogue from cover to cover and refer to everything that is useful as a Gucci bit of kit
• You refer to smoke as 'a double edged sword'
• You spend hours wondering where in civvie street you can get an equal disposable income and at least 6 weeks holiday a year, by completing an inversely proportionally tiny amount of tangible work
• Your blood boils when you see civvies wearing DPM
• Going out on Thursday "international army night out" wherever it may be, or whichever course one is on, involves forming the ring-of-steel, talking about ourselves and the army and aggressively staring at girls; who if they don't immediately come over are obviously lesbians
• Should any man dare break this ritual, and despite talking to the prettiest of girls - as we would like to do, if it weren't for the fact we tend to chew our own tongues and dribble - he is clearly gay!
• You come out in a cold sweat if you find yourself still working after lunch on a Friday
• You have to stop work at 10am for NAAFI break or else you might not make it to lunch
• At least half of your DVD collection are war movies
• Even though your disposable income is twice that of a civvie you still manage to spend it all, every month, with nothing to show for it,about a week after you've told all your soldiers that you 'can't believe how much money they waste on the ****'
• You feel guilty about wearing jeans in front of senior officers in the mess
• The sight of rolling countryside makes you scan for 'enemy depth'
• You think that eating every meal for a week with the same spoon that you have licked clean and put it in the pocket of the same shirt you've worn all week is perfectly normal
• All of your food has to be prepared by a chef because you're not capable of cooking anything that can't either be boiled in a bag or eaten cold
• You lie when people ask you what you do for a living
• When leaving your phone number on a voice message you can't just give it once, has to be repeated
• When surveying open ground (when not looking for enemy in depth) you think, good tank country. If a forestry block - I could get a platoon in here
• You survey open ground
• When you are pointing out some natural feature you begin with "Reference bushy topped tree etc etc"
• Your girlfriend has started saying "admin" and gave you the "Chop" when telling you to put the bin out
• When meeting mates in a pub you always turn up 5 minutes early and are secretly angry that nobody else has
• Worse still, if it's a venue you haven't been to before, you turn up 15 minutes early to put in a CTR, in order that you are definitely there 5 minutes early
• You subconsciously red-pen everything you read.

Oh my god .... all of the above apply!

[kev99]

Chris.

Bad admin on your behalf mate, far to many spelling errors, but very good it killed 10 minutes of my stag.

Cheers

Kev.

[mattybouy]

Roger that, Chris, its all true.

[stu reed]

brilliant! Funniest thing ive read in a long time...!

[Heap90]

Did u lift this from Penguin News ? Saw something very similar in S. Georgia `82.
Still funny + alarmingly true mate.

[eds 20]

Nice one, very 'Peter Kay!' I'll be laughing at this for the rest of the week! :-)

......and I'm still looking fo that job where I can get an equal disposable income and at least 6 weeks holiday a year, by completing an inversely proportionally tiny amount of tangible work!!

[ukcalling]

haha this is so true chris even after being out 11 years i still find myself doing some of these things

[John Turner]

OK - guy comes into our shop and asks the way to 'Dappers lane'

My wife takes him to the door and says "Right - where are you parked?"

"Er - just there" (points)

"OK - reverse out and go down that road, past the pub, not that road (points) - that takes you to East Preston - you'll pass a BMW dealer - big place, can't miss it, and then a junction on the right - Cumberland road, then another junction on the right - on a bend - Weavers Hill. Then you'll see an equestrian shop on the right - well - you probably won't - it's a bit set back - but you'll see a horse leaning against a fence - it's not a real horse, it's plastic and it's only got 3 legs - that's why it's leaning against the fence (laughs her head off) but it looks real .... anyway - just opposite that horse is Dappers Lane ..... where exactly on Dappers lane do you want? - we live just off Dappers lane ..."

"Er....."

I butted in ..... "Look right - 50 metres - white Vauxhall astra - seen?" (point with karate chop movement)

"Yes"

(Felt like saying "This will be known as 'coffin dodger' ....." But resisted!)

"OK - up that road - first junction on left - dappers lane - OK?"

"Cheers!"