Don’t Get Mad, Just Exlax

 Luang Prabang, Laos - photo by JoAnn Sturman

By Steven R. Oberst

During a recent conversation with a friend we reminisced about old football cheers that had seemingly disappeared, probably due to their political incorrectness. “Hit ‘em high; Hit ‘em low; Make ‘em bleed!” is gone. And when was the last time you heard the old brown tide cheer? Come to think of it though, the last time I used this cheer was not at a football game.

The last time was over 30 years ago when I was a helicopter pilot in an Air Force search and rescue unit flying missile support. In earlier stories for FIYE I recounted some of my experiences with Captain Charlie Crown, the Un-leader. Charlie, our unit operations officer, was an overweight, obnoxious, braggart who was not only the worst officer I encountered in my Air Force career, he was basically unfit to lead anyone. I am proud to say that I was part of a group of pilots that basically helped put an end to Charlie’s Air Force career. Unfortunately, Charlie was an abusive person who likely ruined several careers before we took him out.

Every month we met at the Officers Club (O’Club) to plot ways to get Charlie. In fact, we basically went to war on Charlie by pulling every prank and trick we could come up with. The best tricks were the ones that took advantage of one of Charlie’s many character flaws.

Charlie had this annoying habit of stealing food from anyone dumb enough to leave it out on their desk or in the break room where he could find it. One Friday at the O’Club, one of our pilots, Captain Tom Triffick, came up with a way to use this habit against Charlie. “What if,” Tom said, “we made a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookies and left them on the break room table for Charlie to steal and enjoy?”

“Huh? How does that get Charlie?” someone asked.

“Simple,” Tom said, “we mix little pieces of chocolate flavored Exlax in with the chocolate chips.” As it turned out, I calculated that each Tollhouse cookie contained the equivalent of a single recommended adult dose of Exlax. Of course, if someone’s gluttony caused them to eat a half dozen or so cookies, there would eventually be a helluva bowel movement in the works.

Charlie hated to fly, so it was rare that he appeared on the flight schedule, usually just enough to get in his minimum flying requirements for the month. One Thursday afternoon in October, Charlie was scheduled to fly with me as the co-pilot on a routine missile support resupply flight. Wasn’t it nice that someone put a wonderful plate of cookies on the table late that morning?

I was to meet Charlie for our pre-flight briefing at 12:30 PM. As that time approached, I wondered to myself if Charlie would take the bait. I did not wonder long, as Charlie came into the briefing room munching on a cookie. It was all I could do to not break out laughing. Somehow I managed to keep a straight face throughout the briefing. We were airborne by 1:30 and headed south of the base with supplies for a missile support site 120 miles away. This site was basically in the middle of the South Dakota Badlands, which consists of mostly treeless, uninviting terrain. The weather was unseasonably cold with light snow falling.

Flying on these missions with Charlie basically meant that you did all the flying while Charlie assumed his normal relaxed co-pilot posture of feet up on the dash. After takeoff Charlie reached into his flight bag and pulled out two more cookies. I wanted to laugh so bad I thought I might bust a gut. As Charlie munched away, I was thinking to myself, “I wonder how long before the cookies kick in?”

The trip to the site was uneventful although by now there was about an inch of snow on the ground. I landed on the helipad and shutdown the helicopter. The site manager started unloading the supplies. Meanwhile Charlie and I waited in the main building which served as living quarters for the missile crews and support personnel. Once inside Charlie immediately headed to the kitchen to scrounge for food. In honor of the first snow of the season, the Cook had a big pot of chili on the stove. I passed on the chili, but watched as Charlie wolfed down two bowls along with a big stack of soda crackers. He chased this with a big glass of grape Koolaid (a staple in the frig at every site). About 30 minutes later we were back in the air headed for the base. By then I was thinking to myself, “Maybe Charlie has a cast iron stomach and our cookies will have no effect on him.”

Half way across the Badlands it hit. I knew this because Charlie put his feet down and began actively fidgeting in his seat. Within five minutes Charlie came on the intercom and said, “I need you to find a place to land. That damn chili is hitting me hard.”

I responded, “We’re only 40 minutes from the base, can’t you hold out until then?”

It was clear Charlie was in bodily distress as he barked at me “Land now!”

Finding a flat area to land upon was not easy in the Badlands. Fortunately for Charlie there was a dirt road just ahead. As I circled for a landing, Charlie asked if I had any toilet paper. “No, sorry.” I replied. “Perhaps you could use the FLIP (Flight Information Publications) charts.” Charlie grabbed a FLIP for airfield approaches and headed out the door as soon as we touched down. It was clear he was struggling to control the urge to defecate as he quickly moved off the road into the nearby rock formation.

I should pause here to point out the difficulty a pilot encounters when duty calls while wearing a flight suit. Basically you are wearing coveralls with a zipper from the crotch to the neck. In order to take care of number 2, you would have to take your arms out of the sleeves and pull the suit down below your waist. Not all that bad a situation with a toilet available, but all Charlie had at hand was rocks and sagebrush.

Although I had a camera in my flight bag to capture this Kodak moment, it did not do the scene justice because of the falling snow. Just imagine the sight of a fat man, wearing a flight helmet, with flight suit pulled down, straddling a rock while holding a fistful of FLIP chart pages.

Eventually Charlie returned to the helicopter. His flight suit was wet (from the snow), and he was clearly still experiencing considerable bowel distress. I headed the helicopter back to the base. Even though it was fairly late, every pilot was in the hangar to see a doubled-over Charlie exit the chopper. “Damn chili,” he wheezed as he moved gingerly to the restroom at the back of the hangar. Later, an ashen-faced Charlie made it to the flight operations center, grabbed his car keys and headed home. He called in sick the next day. The next week he wrote a letter to the Wing Commander complaining about the chili that made him sick.

Collateral Damage. The day following the cookie caper, the unit commander, Lt Col Brad McMellow, also called in sick. All of the pilots were in on this, so of course none of them ate any cookies. The batch made two dozen cookies and there were ten left at the end of the day. However, you do the math, between Charlie and McMellow, 14 doses of Exlax made it to the intended and unintended victim.

You may think this story is a bunch of crap, but no shit there I was sitting in the O’Club that Friday night leading my fellow pilots in an appropriate cheer: “ Exlax Relax Open Up the Hole. Come on Brown Tide. Roll! Roll! Roll!”