Private Bing: "I'm dreaming of a white christmas . . . "

Until I took this job I hadn't mopped a floor since I was a Marine. That was 28 years ago. I was rusty but it came back quick; mopping is like riding a bicycle.

Although I did accidentally use concrete cleaner instead of floor cleaner one night. (The bottles look the same; one is gray and one is green. I used the gray.)  It dissolved the wax on the floor and was super sticky for days, like walking on fly paper. A contractor had to re-wax it.

I usually mop the floors between 3:00 - 4:00 a.m. One morning i was mopping away when a memory popped in my head:

It was summer, 1982, and i was in the middle of 14-weeks of boot camp at Parris Island off the coast of South Carolina. My platoon was on kitchen duty -- helping cook, serve and clean at the chow hall. I was mopping the floor.

I was the recruit drill instructors loved to hate. I was young, tough, stubborn and naive enough to think I couldn't be broke. They saw that in me so tried all the harder to break me. They kept a mountain lion-like eye on me eager to pounce, singling me out at every chance; I tried not to give them many chances.

Kitchen duty was a refreshing break from the constant shadow of drill instructors. As I was mopping the chow hall floor I start singing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas . . . "  Some of the other recruits joined in. I had just reached the final, "May your days be merry and bright" when I noticed everyone else had gone silent. I looked up from my mopping, saw my comrades locked at attention, and followed their stares towards the drill instructor standing behind me.

"Well look it here, Private fucking Bing!" he said.

It earned me a trip with the DI out to the "Rose Garden," a large sandbox-like pit of deep sand where I did endless amounts of pushups, flutter kicks, sit ups, running in place, eight-count body builders, mountain climbers and all other manner of torture in the brutal, humid South Carolina July heat while the drill instructor screamed profanities until my muscles eventually gave out and I was just thrashing around in sand and sweat like a dying fish.

That night, just before lights out, as we were all lined up in our white skivvies at attention in the barracks eagerly awaiting the command to sleep, the drill instructor called me out:

"I think we'll have Private fucking Bing entertain us with a little rendition of a song. FRONT AND CENTER PRIVATE BING! SING!"

So I did. I did it loud and clear.

"With every Christmas card I write . . . "

With that stuck in my head while mopping the floor at Noon's the other morning, I was singing White Christmas so loud I didn't even hear the "bing" of the door when the customer came in. I didn't know he was behind me until I heard, "Really? Christmas songs? A little early, don't you think?"

"Well, I can't think of any Halloween songs," I replied. "Can you?"