Some folks have asked me why I settled on the name "Pulchritudinosity" for my blog.
There's a hap for that.
There I was, in Basic Training, at the start of my military career. Knowing now what I do about how boot camp was organized then, I can tell you my group had moved past the Authoritarian Leadership phase, into the next phase where some trust could be extended to us.
In that phase, your group gets tapped from time to time to provide guards for the barracks of newly-arrived recruits who are not yet able to provide their own.
You get tested during these times, with Sergeants trying to bully their way in with threatening gestures and words, or displaying invalid credentials for access, and so on.
You also get tested more subtly. In my case, the Sergeant came in, turned on his radio, did something at his desk, then left, ordering me to make his bed as he walked out. After acknowledging the order in proper form, I went in to his office to make the bed as ordered. There was only one problem.
It had a bedspread.
We didn't have bedspreads on our beds. All we had were sheets and military issue wool blankets. Worse, all the bedspreads I ever had growing up were form-fitted to the bed, like a toaster cozy. This was a glorified cotton-weave blanket. Which wouldn't be a problem, except I knew I'd be judged on making the bed properly -- that's the nature of boot camp. And there was nothing in the Basic Military Training manual about it since we didn't have them.
Was I supposed to tuck it like a military wool blanket, or was it supposed to drape over the edges like the bedspreads of my youth had always done?
I first made the bed with tuck. Looked stupid. Nothing quite fit into place, it was bulky in the hospital corners, the whole bed looked...warped.
So I re-made it, this time draping the bedspread over the edges. Holy cow, that was ugly as sin. No way on earth that could be the right way. There was just no way for it to look anything but...well, sloppy. Tuck looked stupid, but it didn't look sloppy. So I made my choice.
I re-made the be again with the tuck technique. Then, knowing I'd be judged on the decision, I documented my decision in the guard's log.
16:33 Sergeant Smith entered with proper authorization.
16:42 Sergeant Smith departed. Ordered me to make bed.
16:47 Bed made.
And then I added the note which would haunt me forever:
Pulchritudinosity sacrificed for neatness.
That Sergeant went hunting for me the next day. We were marching someplace or other and he pulled my ass out of formation to dress me down in front of my own Sergeant and my entire group.
"I had to go and look up that twenty-five cent word you put in my log. Now, I ordered you to make my bed, and what I got was... (A long rant, typical of military dress-down, ensued. I'll leave out the details for sake of space.)
The Sergeant was, of course, absolutely right to do this. An official log is no place for long words. Especially not fake long words designed to cover one's ego or one's meaning (in this case, both).
It's a lesson I will never forget. I don't know if I live up to this lesson all the time, but I think I do a pretty good job of leaving the long words out of official communiques.
Stupidity, after all, should be painful. And I still feel the sting of that military verbal spanking even to this very day.
So...my blog. Ostensibly about Life Lessons, I thought naming it after such a lesson was appropriate.