The classic JMike "No Shit There I Was" story:

I first told this story somewhere around 1987 to a few members of the MIT Assassins' Guild, while we were sitting around exchanging war stories. It's a classic "Frame story" in the sense that you can either just tell the inside story itself, or start with the frame. In this version I guess there are two frames, counting this one! I like stories like that.

For some reason, this story caught the imagination of several people in the Guild, and they started re-telling it, and re-re-telling it, to the point where now there are a whole bunch of people in the Guild who know some version of this story but who have no idea where it came from in the first place!

Everyone in the military, from the greenest buck private to the grizzled old war veteran, has his or her own version of the "No shit, there I was..." story. Such stories begin with the indicated phrase and go on to detail all manner of the teller's exploits.

I went to MIT on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, and ended up being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force upon graduating. My first real duty station was at Offutt Air Force Base, south of Omaha, Nebraska. I was staying at the Bachelor Officers' Quarters, which was right next to the Officers' Club. The first night I was on base I wandered over to the club to drink a couple of beers and yell at the stupid contestants on "Jeopardy" on the TV and saw, when I entered, that there were only two other guys in the bar -- clearly telling the pilot's version of the Story, because it started with "No shit, there I was, flying straight and level at thirty thousand" and degenerated into a whole bunch of pantomime hand waving indicating intricate aerial maneuvers. I didn't want to just sit at the bar and be anti-social, so I sat down with these guys. Pretty soon it became clear that I'd have to tell them my Story in order to gain their acceptance. So I made one up on the spot, and it goes like this:

No shit, there I was, pinned down by a deadly hail of enemy fire. It was actually just me and this one other guy, out on that little-known island on the end of the Hawaiian chain -- you know the one, Kamaunawaunalaya -- where we were fighting the forces of the evil Wan Hung Lo. It was hot that morning, but dry, and there we were, with nothing between us except a roll of duct tape and a box of Frosted Dutch Apple Pop-Tarts -- in their original foil wrapping.

I'll bet there's one thing you didn't know about Frosted Dutch Apple Pop-Tarts -- in their original foil wrapping.

They lase.

So where was I? Did I mention it was a dry heat? Oh, yeah.

So we made ourselves a Frosted Dutch Apple Pop-Tart laser -- see, we used the duct tape to tape an extra layer of foil on one end of the Pop-Tart, so it would know which end to shoot out of -- made ourselves that laser, shot our way out of there, and I'm here to tell you about it today.

That other guy I was with? Guy named MacGyver? Aw, he's a wimp. I taught him everything he knows.

So like you can imagine, that story went over about as well with those pilots as it did with you.

*Note: The frame is mostly true, except that I didn't really tell this story cold. The pilots and I spent some time drinking beer and yelling at the stupid Jeopardy contestants on TV, and while we were talking about "No shit" stories in general I kind of made this up while we went along.