Camel Races!!??

Three nights ago myself and another guy that I work with saw a poster hanging up advertising camel races that were going to take place at the base. It seemed far fetched to me, so I turned to him and asked if he thought it was for real. He looked at me and rolled his eyes as if to say "how gullible are you?". So I laughed, went on about my business.

We are currently getting in civilian contractor EMT's here on base. They have been riding around with us to learn the lay of the land. So anyway, the next day after seeing the poster, I already completely wiped it out of mind, this EMT asks me if I'm going to the camel races. I looked at him kind of perplexed, and told him I'm pretty sure someone was playing a joke. He assured me it was no joke and he knew of people driving more than 2 hours from other bases out here to watch the races.

So now I'm curious. So we drive out to the location on base where the race was supposed to be and there are at least a thousand Army soldiers converged around the track usually used for running. They are all armed with their cameras waiting patiently. No camels anywhere in sight, it's pitch black. To me, it's obvious someone played a joke, especially because of my job, I am always privy to things like this weeks and months in advance.

So myself and the guys in the car with me start trying to figure out who played the joke. About 20 yards from the group of bystanders is about 10 guys laughing hysterically video taping the whole thing. That must be them. I pull up and ask them if they knew anything about it, and they start laughing louder. One guy says "I don't know who it was, but whoever it was, they are a genius"

People actually waited out there for about an hour and a half before they finally realized it was a joke. An hour and a half. Seriously? A group of people stopped me during the mass exodus and accused the Navy of playing the joke on the Army guys since no Navy showed up. We didn't, but we sure didn't fall for it, and we sure enjoyed watching it go down.