"Pearl Harbor Syndrome"

Day "I honestly dont give a crap" of deployment

Today is one of those incredibly frustrating, difficult days that I often find myself enduring during this stupid, God awful deployment. Nothing is better than discreetly text/skype arguing with your deployed significant other in between wiping up the elderly. If you are not familiar with the bullshit that deployment flings at spouses or significant others, maybe I can enlighten you. 

Because of my terrible day, I think it is time to chat about a little something I call "Pearl Harbor Syndrome." PHS for short. PHS is a term I endearingly coined, not from the actual event on December 7th, but from the Hollywood film Pearl Harbor. What does this have to do with anything?

Glad you asked. Wayyyyy back when, before I was dating a military man, I would sit and watch movies such as Pearl Harbor and think "How dreamy! Nothing more romantic than a man in uniform to write letters to and save the day and..." 

NO.

This is the epitome of Pearl Harbor Syndrome. By some sort of cinematic trickery, Hollywood has wooed women into believing that deployment is this romantic, mushy -gushy gobbledeegook that throws everyone into a whirlwind romance and leaves them banging ferociously in an airplane hanger. 

WRONG.

There is nothing romantic about wallowing alone in your kleenex and hair filled bed for days, with nothing to keep you company but your tears and the occasional visit from a concerned relative. 

Picture this:

 Imagine a horrific break up, the love of your life leaves you and flees to Europe in the arms of a needy, attention whore that requires all of his time. You know that maybe, one day, he will return to you, but you have no idea where he is at, when he'll come back, or if you are completely delusional.

It's like that. Only you are still together, you have no idea what continent or country, and the woman is actually a bunch of men in uniforms, otherwise known as the military. Those romantic letters cant always be sent because he cant tell you where he is, and more likely than not, you are not an attractive nurse who lives in Hawaii. 

Though sometimes I do wear red lipstick for no reason and pretend. 

Oh, and the only banging you ever do is your head against the wall in sexual frustration, because if you choose to be a faithful mate like myself, you wont see wiener. For a long. Fricken. Time. 

Yup, Pearl Harbor sure hit the nail on the head, golly gee! How fun! Every couple's dream!

Now dont get me wrong, I know that deployment has brought a lot of couples closer together. But the only closeness that it has brought me is closer to strangling my fiance and shitting all over a public restroom.

So, next time you sit down to watch your favorite lovey-dovey Pearl Harbor flick, just remember: Not only are those people waaaay to happy to be dating a deployed service member, they are also actively having sex. Food for thought.

Rules of survival: Here comes deployment!

Day 75 of Deployment.

ATTENTION NEW GIRLFRIENDS/ FIANCEE'S/SPOUSES OF MILITARY MEN:

This one is for you :)
Bare with me.
On my way back from a short family vacation, after having yet another ferocious facebook chat argument with my deployed hubby to be, I realized what a literal shit show these past few months have been. That got me thinking, there HAS to be other significant others out there who feel like me. As alone as I feel, I cant really be alone....right?

After frantically googling what to expect as a military spouse, I have decided to change my tactics and attempt to explain to the world what deployment is like through the eyes of a newbie to the military world.

 So, if some hopelessly alone girlfriend or fiancee (who is too afraid to join a forum) starts googling to  cope with the tears and fears, perhaps I can lend a newbie perspective.

Alright. Here we go:

The days leading up to my fiancé's deployment were definitely head spinning. After an amazing 5 months of dating, we got engaged on April 5th of this year. He was in the Air Force for two years before we met, and has 4 more to go. Deployment was discussed several times while dating, but we were told he wouldn't deploy until December of this year, if at all.

Rule One: Don't be a misguided fool like myself and assume that since the military said he wont go for several months, that he really wont go for several months.

Nope. December turned into September. Which was cool. I thought, "Ok, Septmember. I can handle that. No biggie."
September quickly turned to June... which was suddenly pushed to March...?!! WHAT?! Of THIS YEAR??
But ooops! Teeheehehe! Just kidding, they changed their minds again. Now it's May. May May May. Of this year.
Ohh wait, May? Nope, mind changed AGAIN, it's now back to June.

So, my once careless attitude towards that "far away" deployment did a whiplash 180 and turned into "Oh shit, he leaves in a couple months."

But, we were newly engaged. He had just proposed and we had a wedding to start thinking about. We had just gotten started looking into cakes, flowers, all that good wedding stuff when he got the news. "I leave in a week," he told me. A week. My heart sank. It was April 17th, we had just gotten engaged, and now he was leaving.

 I felt... sad...I thought. Did I? It was hard to know. My poor, fragile mind and heart had been pulled in so many different date directions that, to be honest, I didn't believe them. I figured that the military would change their mind again and he wouldn't go until next year or something dumb.
Over the next few days leading up to deployment, he would attempt to discuss matters such as taking care of his bills for deployment, etc, and I just brushed it off. He started to get frustrated with me "It's like you dont even care this is happening, why do you act so nonchalant about this?" He would ask.

At that point, I would usually find some minute flaw to point out to him. "Because you're a picky eater, and I dont know if I can deal with that," I'd huff. Suddenly, we were fighting all the time. A person would think that in the final few days before your hubby's deployment, you would be snuggling and cheery and absorbing every second of being together.

Rule number 2: WRONG. Don't expect the week before he leaves to be filled with romance and glitter and romantic rainbows. If you happen to be cynical like myself, you will most likely hate him. For no real reason.

More to come.

It sure doesn't smell like roses...

Day 68 of deployment


Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You're going about your day, faking smiles, masking your general disdain for people, when you're suddenly struck with the overwhelming urge to shit all over a public restroom?
Not that this is probably a common occurrence with most people.
I, however, am not most people.


Allow me to elaborate.


After dragging myself out of bed this morning, I scurried into work for my normal 2-10p shift, leaving a trail of hair in my wake. Staying true to my usual tardiness, I clocked in five minutes late and surveyed the damage left by first shift. I was met by a wave of snide comments and complaints from my coworker, Kristen. Poor Kristen. I rarely work with her much anymore, maybe twice a month due to our opposite schedules. A shy, 23 year old, engaged mom of one, she rarely has time to do anything but work and desperately hold on to what little sanity she has left. We had a stint of full time work together last year. I jumped off that crazy train once class started up and never went back. I am slightly surprised that she hasn't snapped from the overdemanding hours she works as a result of short staffing. Today, Kristen was dangerously teetering on the brink of either a complete nervous break down or a homicidal spree. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one.


A phone call from a resident only further upped the ante on our impending mental meltdowns. Our manager hands us the phone, and busily returns to her comfy desk chair to continue her extremely important job of staring into nothingness. 


"This is Alma in room 26. I'm on the john and just cant seem to get up."


Wonderful.


Alma, before she entered the home and made it her dying goal to make our lives a living hell, was once a professor at a college. She tries to play the whole "memory" card, but weeeee know better than that. She finds utter joy in asking us to do daunting daily tasks, such as lifting her ass off the toilet when she is terribly capable of doing it herself. Best of all, her tone of voice and way of speaking is just like the teacher off of Southpark, mmmmmmk?


We enter Alma's room and are quickly assaulted with the pungent scent of Alma droppings.


"It doesn't smell like roses in here," she giggles, obviously entertained by our grimaces. Kristen and I struggle to lift her 200 some pound frame of the toilet, finally succeeding after several minutes. We are rewarded for our efforts as soon as Alma is on her feet, when we realize that not only did she manage to get "stuck," she also managed to shit...all down the front of her toilet riser. She turns and beams at her work. "Oh my, aren't I Miss PoopPants!" she exclaims, smiling coyly at us, "How ever shall I clean this up?" We smile back at her, pleasant as always, and say we'll be back with wipes to clean it up.


Which leads me to my opening statement. Although I stand there, smiling at her, using my sweet "I care!" voice, the thought crosses my mind: I would love to take a giant dump, and smear it alll over a public restroom. Here at work. And just leave it. Leave it for the big shots to clean up. Dont get me wrong, I do enjoy the residents most of the time...but I swear, sometimes...no money in the world can pay for this nonsense....


I begin to think that my hipster hair bathmat idea wasn't such a terrible idea after all. 


And with that, I shall end my night. After my nightly cry in the shower, I plan to crawl into my nest of hair (once known as my bed) and dream of the day my beloved fiance returns to me. Most likely while stuffing my face with Gardettos and rolling in the crumbs. Here's to another day survived!

I'm... I'm balding?!

Day 67 of deployment

This. Cannot. Be happening. 

At the sprite young age of 21, my hair should be a flowing mane of chocolate locks. It should whip in the wind like a Garnier Fructis commercial every time I so much as even turn my head. It. Should. Be. Goddess like. 

Instead, it is vacating my scalp faster than prostitutes at an abstinence pledge. 

So now, my nightly "after-work-shower-sobbing-session" is accompanied by large clumps of brown hair, which have started to plug the plumbing. My parents have resorted to buying a "hair strainer" after my father pulled something that resembled a furry, well fed house cat out of the shower drain. 

I've entertained the idea of leaving the hair until it collected into a stylish, hipster bath-mat that I could sell on Etsy. My family, with their full heads of hair, dont seem to appreciate my innovative idea. 

Yes, I live with my parents. I  made the executive decision to move home with my family for the next year in order to financially prepare for my upcoming nuptials. "A way to save money," I tell people. In all reality, living with actual humans is probably the only way to keep myself from devolving into a delirious, shut in cat hoarder while my fiance is deployed. Although I work around people at a nursing home, the elderly aren't exactly the best vessels to practice social skills on, especially when they are convinced that this is still the year 1942 and that my name is Sissy. It's not.

My fiance has been gone for slightly over 2 months now. Two weeks after our whirlwind engagement, he was swept away by the military for a month, which turned into two, and is now going to be four. Besides my family, the only other individual I have to keep me slightly sane is my coworker Troy*. Being a flaming homosexual, Troy is the one male I can comfortably hang out with while my fiance is away. Our main similarities are our dead end job of wiping up the elderly, our spiteful mindsets, and our undying love for male wiener.

Troy is the only person I allow to yell at me when I begin acting neurotic. Which lately, has become a frequent occurence.