5 O’clock Charlie
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There’s an episode of the old M*A*S*H TV show where an inept North Korean pilot regularly drops a bomb near the army hospital. The doctors and nurses dubbed the guy “Five O’clock Charley” because he arrives every day at the same time. The pilot, described as a “washout from Kamikaze school,” never hits his intended target, an ammo dump, and his plane makes such a racket that everyone knows he’s coming. People start making bets on how far away from the target Charley's bomb will land. Only Frank Burns and Margaret think he’s a threat and they bug Henry, the C.O., to get an anti-aircraft gun. The episode was aired on Sept. 22, 1973, and I started thinking about it this week when the air conditioner in my kitchen started making godawful noise. I tried denial, telling myself that there was nothing unusual with the clanging and banging coming out the thing, but my logical side was telling me there was something very bad going on. I had bought two air conditions when I first