The valentines day date was to be at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to "Cook her something she's never had before" for dinner. After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINATELY never eaten.

I got out my trusty case of MRE's. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here's what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of dehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/rehydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, sauteed in shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow poop. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it's got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy right?)

For dessert, I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed 'em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it. Voila--Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named "Military Special"--it sells for $4.35 per fifth at the Class Six ) and mixed in four packets of "Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored" (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess... could've been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that $hit is EXPENSIVE... my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600 on sale at the Lejeune PX ), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said "This looks INCREDIBLE!!!"

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the makeshift "wine" I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the "Chocolate mousse" I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay... yeah... it's Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make... yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself "uh oh" and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The military even makes smellgood) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time I could hear her say "What the hell is WRONG with me???," as she again send flatulent shockwaves into the porcelain bowl. This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn't come out for 30 minutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn't want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

She came out with a slightly gray palor to her face, and said "I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can't believe I keep running to your bathroom!!" I gave her an Immodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can.

After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of "Army food" she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said "I ate 9,000 calories or dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?" After I concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word.

She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn't $hit for 5 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad, her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she'd ever crapped in a guy's house on a date. She'd been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I'm an asshole, but it was still a funny night.

Last Valentine's day, I went out with a waitress from a Chinese restaurant. We ended up back at her place, where we engaged in a little light petting on the couch.

The waitress started to heat up. "I'll give you anything you like, Valentine," she said as she sat astradle my lap.

"Um, a little 69 would be nice," I said.

So she fixed me chicken with garlic sauce.

I hadnt had an MRE in about 2 years since I got out. You just gave me an idea though.

Swamp_Fox and Jarrod:

I hope either of you will take pity on an old man. I read the joke repeatedly - and am still at a loss. Even with you, Jarrod, mentioning about an MRE (and, yes, I know about "Meals refused by everyone", I still have missed this joke) I guess senility is catching up with me! Please give me a hint!

Never mind! I got it! (Although in my time there were no "garlic sauce flavors". It was more like canned fish flavor!

Swamp Fox!



You bastard!!!!!!!


My wife is no doubt wondering at the manic laughter issuing from the office!

Gerry, it's one of those things, if you haven't eaten an MRE you just wouldn't get it.
The best analogy I can think of would be serving up a dish of spam and beans!

Cheers, Dave.

There is nothing like the famed "MRE Crap". That is the one you take about 2 days after a 2 week field problem and having been eating MRE's the whole time.

The absolute worst episode I have ever experienced was while at the NTC (National Training Center) at Ft Irwin, CA. When you are on a training rotation there you spend 2 weeks out playing war games in the desert. The majority of your meals are MRE's with the occasional hot meal usually being a T-Rat (think MRE bulk packed for feeding a unit at a time) After eating that stuff for 2 weeks you come back out of the field to what is called the "shades". That is where you stay in your tents while there. The latrines there have running water and toilets but are pretty much open air. Pitcure 2 rows of about a dozens toilets and they are facing each other with no walls or doors. Then imagine every toilet being used by a GI who has the worst constipation you can imagine from eating MRE's and T-Rats for 2 weeks straight. There isnt enough prune juice or Metamucil in the world to overcome MRE constipation!!!! So you have all these soldiers with absolutely zero privacy grunting, groaning, strining and moaning to relieve the killer MRE plug. A few try to hide behind a news paper but it doesnt help much. Your entire business is there for everyone to see. But nobody would dare make any comment because they are all in the same boat.

It is an experience you will never forget (unfortunately). But once you have had the dubiouos experience of the NTC and the MRE Crap you can look back and get a good laugh out of it.

If any of you are still curious I will gladly send you a couple MRE's so you can experience it for yourself.

William, send me a couple, I'm going to feed them to my wife (and then go hunting for a week!).

Cheers, Dave.

Sambar,
PM me your address and I will hook you up. But only on the condition that you watch her eat them and report back the results of her feast.

Man how old were those MRE's I haven't seen a MRE with Ham Slice in years at least 4 anyhow. Some of the better ones that really screw up your stomach are beef enchilladas MRE the Jamican pork chop MRE. Also don't mess with the peanut butter in those damn things if you ever want to take a crap again don't eat it. The best MRE was the ones with the five fingers of death! Some of the best MRE's are the cold weather ones.

I gotta ask....."five fingers of death"?

At one time that had an MRE with hotdogs in it and it was called the five fingers of death cause it had five hotdogs in the meal.

the ones over here in oz are generally called rat packs(ration packs)
we got hold of a few for last minute meals in hunting packs so we took out a few to sample one hunting trip most were edible they didnt tell us that the cheese is meant to block you up and the chocolate bars make you ahhh unblock, luckily we ate both so the results wernt too bad. i think most of it we sold off to other people but all the jam in a tube and cordial concentrates we still use.