You all may remember my Deployment Series in which a number of lovely ladies shared their deployment experiences and their tips to survive. But deployments aren’t always all bad. Sometimes there are some pretty funny things that happen and I’m happy to share with you a few stories that show the funny side of deployments. If you have a funny deployment story you’d like to share, please email me! I’d love to highlight your story!
I am so thrilled to be guest blogging again on A Boy, A Girl, and the Marine Corps website! Thank you again for the opportunity. I’m LC, and You can find me over at Faith & Deployments . Hang tight, I’m going through my second PCS in six months and trying to open my own business. But I promise I will have tons to write about our new adventure on the West Coast!
The lighter side of Deployment
It’s so easy to get caught up in everything negative deployments and TDYs have to offer. But when I look back at all three deployments we’ve been through I have some great stories and memories.
Two of my favorites happen to involve the world’s largest brown spider and a pressure washer and a Nor’easter and my wedding cake topper.
I’ll start with the wedding cake topper. So like normal married tradition, you freeze the top portion of your wedding cake and eat it on your first wedding anniversary. Since husband was deployed through our wedding anniversary, our cake topper had to survive 15 months of freezer time. Everything was well and good in the freezer department until a summer Nor’Ester decided to blow into town. Lots of rain and wind. I remember my first thought as the power went out was:
“Sh*t the cake”.
Right? Of all things I’m concerned about our wedding cake. Not that it was 100 degrees outside through the storm, that I had just went grocery shopping and had a fridge full of food or how I would survive with the dog when the roads were flooding out. But the cake. I was concerned with the cake. Plenty of friends who had power offered to take it, but I just knew if it left the safety of the slowly defrosting freezer it would meet it’s end. At hour 15 of the power being out I remember just loosing it from the heat and hunger of cheez-its. I sat on my carpeted living room floor in my unmentionables (undies), and sobbed. I cried even harder when my husband called. Our conversation was quite hilarious looking back.
“Babe??? What’s wrong”
“The cake! It’s ruined! I know it is!”
“What cake?”
“Our WEDDING CAKE. There is a storm and we haven’t had power all day and I just know it melted all to lemon goodness”
“Well open the freezer and check”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! And let all the cold air that’s left escape?!?! NO! If the cake is still frozen I decrease the chances of it being okay by opening the freezer”
“Babe, we’ll just buy a new cake if it’s ruined. It’s not that big of a deal. People do it all the time.”
“That’s even worse! Everyone will know it wasn’t our wedding cake! I can’t fraud our first year wedding anniversary! That is like a bad omen for the rest of our marriage. I can’t believe it won’t make it through a year because of a stupid storm we didn’t plan for. I should have brought lots of ice or something to keep it alive.”
“Okay babe. It will all be okay”
I realize now I was a bit over dramatic, but for some insane reason this cake was the only thing holding out my attitude through the deployment. The thought of him coming home and us enjoying it and reminiscing about our wedding together all romantic after a deployment was all I could think about. Needless to say my tears were for nothing. The cake made it, was amazing to say the least and we couldn’t even finish the whole thing even after a week.
Take two on deployment tears and fears.
I loathe spiders. They are the single most thing I am afraid of. I got this bright idea to “power wash” the house for my lovely husband during his last deployment. I put the thing together like a champ and went to town. I made it around the entire house (and it looks good if I do say so), and all I had left was our half wrap porch. I made it all the way around the porch to the very last corner where a GIANT and I mean 7-8 inches WIDE spider jumped out of the siding at me.
So I scream, drop the sprayer and run into the yard. I’m crying, yelling, and pointing at the porch like someone will care. No one is around. Our neighbors are probably inside shutting their blinds thinking, “That crazy lady next door is having a meltdown again”. I finally realize the pressure washer may have enough pressure to kill the spider. I tiptoe back onto the porch. Pick up the sprayer and go to town spraying the monster. At some point I started screaming, “Die! Die! You filthy bastard”
Imagine a little 5’4” girl, in dirty clothes, holding a sprayer, yelling “Die! Die” at the top of her lungs on her porch in her neighborhood. You got the picture? Okay awesome. That was me.
I wound up calling a friend. Superwoman B to the rescue and she killed the dirty thing.
All in all, both of those memories I laugh at now. They were humbling and emotional and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
