MRE

I had a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) for dinner last night. These are the rations they give soldiers in war. My roommate is a reporter for the Pasadena newspaper and he did a story on some Marines and they gave him one to try. So we split a spaghetti and meat sauce meal.

Aside from the spaghetti, the packet contained a slice of bread, cheese spread, powdered vanilla shake mix, tobasco sauce, instant coffee with sugar and non-dairy creamer, chewing gum, moist towelettes, a few squares of toilet paper, and a pack of Charms candy.

The first thing we did was throw away thye Charms candy. I read somewhere that Marines consider them to be bad luck and get rid of them ASAP. And in the spirit of "when in Rome..."

Next we prepared to "cook" the spaghetti. The MRE comes with a pouch of chemicals that, when in contact with water, undergoes some kind of chemical reaction and heats the food up. It takes about 10-15 minutes. This was not the first time I'd eaten an MRE. When I was a boy scout, a fellow scout's father was in the Air Force and brought us MREs to eat on a camping trip. Back then you needed to boil some water and drop the pouch in to cook the food. Oh how efficient the 21st century soldier is! Though I wish I knew what kind of chemicals they were. Every time I use a microwave I'm convinced I'm getting cancer; after eating chemically-cooked food I fear my intestines might crawl out of my ass, leave my dead intestine-less body where it lay, and attack Tokyo.

The instructions tell you to pour water in the pouch containing the chemicals and food; to hold it horizontal for 1 minute; and then rest it at an angle against a rock for 10-15 minutes. Actually, it says to set the pouch at an angle against "a rock or something." Or Something. Something? Do the skulls of dead Iraqis count as something I wonder?

The second I poured the water in the pouch that held the chemicals and the food I burned my fingers and lost feeling in all 5 fingertips of my left hand. There are no blisters, but nearly a day later my hand still tingles. It's kind of pleasant, actually. But it really hurt at the time, so I dropped the pouch. Then my roommate read a caution: keep away from flames. Taking this new bit of information into account I figured it probably wasn't a good thing that I dropped the MRE on the stove. So I picked it back up and burned myself again.

I got a rock (or something) out of the backyard and propped the MRE against it. While I waited for the food to "cook" I made the vanilla shake. This involved pouring "one canteen cap full" of water into the shake mix pouch. Enemy fire was thick in the kitchen and I couldn't reach my canteen so I eyeballed it. I think. I have no idea what a "canteen cap full" of water looks like. I don't even know what a canteen cap looks like. The shake didn't taste that bad, actually, so I either guessed correctly or was so off but the shake is really supposed to be terrible that my miscalculations proved a blessing.

But now the spaghetti and meat sauce (bolognese?) was ready. I burned my hand a third time opening the package up. Then I opened the bread, spread the cheese spread on it, held my breath, and tasted the spaghetti. It tasted like... Chef Boyardee. Just like it. It even had the same "been sitting here for 5 years" quality. And oddly, it actually tasted REALLY GOOD when I put some tobasco sauce on it. The bread was awful. I think they took so much of the nutrition out and loaded it with so many preservatives mold can't live on it.

A soldier can, though. And for one night so did I.

And by that I mean I ate it before ordering a pizza.