Army Brats

Well, I’m pretty much an army brat n I thought I’d acquaint you with our species.

A typical conversation when two army brats meet for the first time in an unstructured environment (i.e. anyplace outside the cantonment. Schools, colleges, workplaces n their likes are obviously not structured enough to compare) goes loosely along these lines:
First dude/dame: So...what did you say your dad’s (or mom's, of course, though in rarer cases) name was..?
To this the other shall reply stating the rank and name of their parent with carefully cultivated enunciation as if reciting it for a school ceremony. In. that. order. Even the tiniest fledgling shall speak of their dad using first their ranks n then the name (this of course leads to much confusion when the parent gets a new rank which in turn leads to hush-hush parenting sessions to hammer the new ‘name’ in). And they do it in the most reflex, unconscious manner. As a kid I have filled my fair share of forms with ‘Major’ in the blank for my dad's first name.
This exchange is, almost invariably, followed by the query: so... where've you been?
To the unacquainted this would most certainly sound like piffle. A question hardly worthy of a second thought. To be answered with a perfunctory "oh, here and there...”; or at times with a "at the corner chemists. I just HAD to have some valium before I could hit the pub again, or hit the floor with my feet for that matter" if you are the more gregarious kinds.
But, for the quintessential army brat this is the vital part of the conversation. The revelation, if you will. Sine qua non.
To be answered reverently with a list of all the places they've ever been posted to (running backwards from the present, obviously. n when I say "they've been posted” I mean their dads/moms, which is just as obvious, but anyhow.), ending with the Command Hospital they were born at. After which they're thick as thieves.

Another thing, if you ever sass (sass: know, be aware of, have sex with, meet) a typical specimen you'll know what I mean when I say that they're snobs. Just stare at one long enough n you'll see it. That slightest upward angle to the chin, that scrunching up of the nose as if somebody had held a mildly smelly pair of yesterday's socks under it, n of course the utterly condescending way in which they refer to waiters, traffic policemen, bus conductors, roadside scroungers, tramps and the odd guy who is quizzed for directions as 'bahiya' in the same breath. Point this out to a less aware brat n he'll deny it flat out: "Me! Snooty?! You must've confused me with someone else... Why, I even referred to that proletarian serf over there as 'bhaiya', as though he were in some way related to the magnificence that is me ! ". An educated guess would be that this comes from a lifetime of being raised in an atmosphere the roots of which can be traced to the owld british times. Can’t say I condone the attitude but it is so ingrained that it has become second nature. Royalty aside, the only people who can possibly be as militantly elitist as your otherwise unpretentious, self effacing pal who happens to have a parent in the army would be their airforce counterparts. Wait a sec, did I say 'as elitist as'.. I obviously wasn't thinking straight. One airforce brat can put on more airs than half a dozen army ones put together... okie.. make that three. But that, as they say, is another tale altogether.


N.B.: Reading the above might have led you to form the opinion that we consider the word 'so' a conversational gambit of sorts. this inference of course is absurd and totally unsound. So.

To other army brats, if any, reading this: when I say brat I use it as a term of endearment of course. And you really are a brat you know. If you think otherwise, just tell me, what was the last time you picked up your own socks when you came home and put em in the washer, for that matter, have you EVER picked your own socks up?