PAY

My first pay parade here, I'm a newly minted Lieutenant with the Argyll and Sutherland Armored Car Squadron.
"Next", just my luck, I get the fat, obnoxious-looking clerk. She stares at me with a mixture of veteran's dislike for rookie, enlisted disdain toward officers and, dare I say it, perhaps a slight racial tinge.
"Right Lt, base salary one thousand rupees a month." I groan inwardly, used to make that in two days in the coffee house. What can you do? It is a lottery draft.
"Tobacco allowance one hundred rupees." How very generous, I think acidly, a whole package. Good job I don't smoke.
"Paperwork allowance ten rupees a month. Now in your case, that's reduced to five, your sergeant testifies she did half of it. She gets the other five." Well, five doesn't butter many parsnips.
"Hardship allowance on maneuvers, five rupees per night of sleeping out." I'm under-whelmed.
Wicked smile, "last but not least, two rupees for the poetry reading you did in the officer's mess." I just can't help it, I burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?, a nearby officer asks. I explain about the poetry reading. Soon everyone is laughing, except the clerk I'm dealing with.
"Sign here, Lt." I do. Counting it out, I ponder. Toothpaste, shampoo, pads, a sci fi magazine and two trips to a coffee house and it is so gone. Mother was right, should have tried getting into med school, draft exempt.