SO our outfit wasn't very big on pulling out at all. As fish, our class was too terrified of our butts, since about half of them were gray belts. One senior in particular who was in Aggie Wranglers was especially terrifying. We were convinced he was beaten as a child, and of course, that's who we had to pick.

One evening after we did ranger chow and touched the arches a few times on the way back, we were catching our breath, locked up in the hallway, when a few of the senior cav jocks came up. The pissheads hadn't gotten up to the floor yet, so it was just them and us. They asked us if we had stolen anything in an attempt to get privileges, and we replied that we had not. This was the last few weeks of first semester, and they were livid over it. "WHAT?! You fish haven't pulle dout at all? Stolen something? Back when we were fish, we had a lot more guts than y'all do. You have to take something and get privileges. Take Joe Rock's (Name changed) Aggie wrangler jacket, his room is open. Go in, take his jacket from his closet, and hide it. Then when he asks for it back, demand something in return. You have to negotiate. Start with couches and minibars, you'll get smoked, but he has to give you something."

So before the pissheads or anyone else gets tot he hallway, my roommate runs in and grabs the guys windbreaker jacket out of his closet, and hides it in a footlocker in our fallout hole, locked.

Nothing happens for about 24 hours. Not a peep.

4 o'clock rolls around, our daily crapout session before evening formation at 6pm. We're all in the hallway doing our fish thing, when Mr. Rock shows up. It's just him and the pissheads. And us. He has us stand on the wall and calmly says "Fish, I know you took my jacket. I just want it back, and I want to know who told you to take it."

"MR ROCK SIR, PERMISSION TO MAKE A STATEMENT SIR."

"What?"

"SANTA CLAUS AND HIS 8 frickING REINDEER SIR."

We all expect things to proceed at this point the way our zips said they would: A minor crap out session with Mr. Rock talking to our designated fish negotiator for the jacket.

That's nothing like what happened.

After about an hour of Spiderman, Tron, Superman, fat body PT, tons of pushups and other regular exercises in the fallout hole with the door locked and the heat on, no negotiations had been mentioned. It was just "I'm going to smoke you until you give it back". Eventually my roommate (our negotiator) was called into another hole after he was identified, and Mr. Rock had him with his feet on the top bunk in a handstand for a while while he "negotiated". What we hadn't thought of at the time was that my roommate pretty much lost his marbles after a half hour or so during crapouts, and when Mr. Rock started actually asking him questions, unintentional hilarity happened.

"Where is my Jacket?"

"Yes sir!"

"Really XXXXX. Look, it'll stop if you just tell me where it is."

"Lost in Space Sir!"

"What were you told to get for it?"

"Yes sir!"

"That wasn't a yes or no question. XXXXX, do you even understand what's going on?"

"Sir not being informed to the highest..."

"shut up, go back in with your buddies."

After 2 days of this, eventually one of the sophomores went into the fallout hole during PT, and knocked the hinges out of the footlockers in there. THey took the jacket, and replaced the hinges.

We didn't get shite.