SLPAD - 47 - cutting no ice with Pierce

[Mark Kohut]

I have never understood the dropped fork bit......I more than half-assumed
it was an accident?

On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 11:08 PM Michael Bailey <
michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> “…my leave starts at 4:30 and I was figuring.” Pierce dropped the fork he
> was holding.
>                It hit the tray with a loud clank. “No,” he said, “you’ll
> have to wait awhile on that
>                leave, Levine.” Levine smiled a big loose idiot’s smile that
> he knew got on the lieutenant’s
>                nerves. “Hell,” he said, “since when am I so indispensable
> to the company?” Pierce
>                sighed in annoyance. “Look, you know the situation in this
> company as well as anybody.
>                And the order says specialists, ace specialists.
> Unfortunately we don’t have any.
>                But you have to do, slobs like you are all we have.” Pierce
> was ROTC, a graduate of MIT.”
>
>
> Pierce bothers to drop his fork.
> Acting out authority and annoyance?
> But not strictly by the book.
>
> Like saying lower down, “…ace specialists. Unfortunately we don’t have any.
> But you have to do, slobs like you are all we have.”
>
>
> “big loose idiot’s smile that he knew got on the lieutenant’s nerves”
>
> He’s constantly doing these fruitless amateur psy-ops, and he’s not going
> to get his way here, but his version of reality seems to be annoying enough
> to the Lieutenant that it influences the latter to act less professionally.
> --
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>