I'll See You the Flu During a PCS and Raise You an Online Hotel Reservation that Turned Out to be a Drug Den

When I first made the online acquaintance of armywifetoddlermom a few years ago, a new game was developing between the various military spouses supporting each other online.

It is a wonderful game, and perfect for the military families, because just when things seem to be most hopeless and horrible - when nothing seems to be going right - it gives us the ability to laugh about the very worst.  It gives us a chance to celebrate surviving hair raising home experiences that would knock Martha Stewart flat and dinner time dynamics that would send Rachel Ray into uncontrollable spasms of fear whenever a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil was placed in her sight.

The game came to be called "Military Family Poker."  And I do believe that it is time for our next match up.

We have moved a lot.  It looks as though we will be moving yet again sometime in the general vicinity of September.  For the first time, we will be moving ourselves.

Why?

Every single time the movers have come to my house, one of them has plugged and overflowed the toilet.  And every time, my sweet husband has been called into work just as the errrrm, stuff hits the fan. 

Anyone willing to fold yet?

Comments

[armywifetoddlermom]

Do you wanty me to post the recent car-sick thingy...

[Jan Wesner]

Here's one -- This happened about a year ago, when we still lived in Germany, in a small town off-base. I had the flu. I walked my son to our neighborhood school, and then was about to drive my daughter to the Child Development Center when I discovered my battery was dead. I called my husband, who was at work. He came home, and attempted to jump start my car. Problem was, we couldn't find the battery on his German-spec BMW. I went inside to try and find an English version of the owner's manual online. Meanwhile, a neighbor knocked on the door to tell me there was an emergency at my son's school. It seems they had tried to call me, but I didn't get any cell phone reception in the garage so I had no idea. We rush to the school to find that my son had fallen down, put two teeth through his front lip. We call the base medical clinic to ask if they do stitches on a four-year-old. Yes, they say. We take him there, only to be told "Sorry, we don't do stitches on children that young." Meanwhile, my husband needs go to back to work. I drop him off, take my daughter to the CDC, then my son to the German emergency room. He gets seven stitches, and they send us to the dentist. I take him to the dentist, pick up my daughter, pick up my husband and we all go home. End of day. The good news: I forgot I had the flu. Oh, and the battery ... it was behind the backseat.
Next?
http://blogs.tampabay.com/standingby/

[Tressa]

Ok, I will play.

We were PCS'ing from overseas. Anyone that has moved overseas knows that you have to live out of suitcases for 30 days. It is a real bummer. We had a 3 year old and a 10 month old at the time. We were very anxious to be moving. It had been a fun tour, but we were ready to get stateside again. The duty driver picked us up a little bit late,
but we loaded up the van with all of our "stuff". As we started driving my husband noticed that the van didn't sound right. The driver said it was fine and we kept on going. Well, half way to the airport the van blew a tire and we had to pull over to the side of the road. My husband and the driver tried for a bit to remove the spare, but it was not going to come off. We didn't have time for this. So, we tried waving down a taxi. Taxis were not allowed to pick people up off the freeway in this particular country, so no one was stopping. My husband finally decided to stand in the freeway to make a taxi stop. We didn't even wait for him to say anything we just started loading all our stuff into the taxi. We barely fit. Think sardines. We made it to the airport, gave the driver every last dollar that we had and ran for our plane. My husband just had time to call the base to let them know that we left the poor duty driver stranded on the side of the freeway. We barely made our flight.Oh, I forgot, all of this happened in the middle of the night. Thank goodness the rest of the trip was uneventful and the kids were great.

[Heather S.]

I love this game! This is the coolest. Unfortunately, I have to fold because I have nothing that beats the toilet-clogging movers. But I hope that everyone else keeps playing because this game makes me smile even on bad days! :-)

[Shanna]

I wanna play! We're in the middle of a PCS right now. Packers and movers will be here next Thursday and Friday. Last Saturday, ON his second birthday, my youngest son jumped off of my oldest son's bed. It was only about 18 inches, but he twisted just right and fractured his left femur. As I waited in the emergency room for his transfer to the children's hospital, my husband cancelled his birthday party. He is now in a Spica cast which is BOTH legs, in a spread and slightly bent position, from ankle to chest. The poor little guy can't move. We are scheduled to start our cross country drive on the 26th, fortunately they will remove the cast on the 25th. Ever the optimist, I told my husband that at least he can't get in the mover's way now!

[HomefrontSix]

While moving from Fort Campbell, KY to Hawaii we stayed with family in the Los Angeles area for about 10 days. The day before we get ready to leave, Little Man gets a rash. Nothing else - just a rash. We were concerned but he wasn't showing any signs of being sick so we charged ahead.

By the time we get to SoCal, the rash is ALL OVER his body and angry-looking. Now we're worried. But we can't do much about it that day as both my husband and I are laid up with a stomach virus that we picked up on the plane. Princess Trouble is down for the count with one of her famous chest infections/bronchitis. After a stint in the local ER (STILL fighting with Tricare to get them to pay that one!) for me due to dehydration and such, we take Little Man in to a local doctor (read: out of pocket). They do blood tests and all sorts of fun stuff...only to determine that he is highly allergic to the amoxicillin he was on for a double ear infection.

He then came down with the stomach virus. We all managed to recover enough to get on the plane to Hawaii 8 days later and then proceeded to spend 81 days in temp lodging before finding a place to live.

[SigGal]

Shanna - OMG! I can't believe that I'm laughing at your post - you poor thing! I had two yr old break his tibia jumping over a soccer ball - but he only had one leg immobilized and got around jsut fine - but a half body cast?!? You have such a great attitude that you could write that and not even whine - but leave your readers laughing. You go girl! This too shall pass. Attitude is everything. Good luck on your PCS move.

This thread is great!

[Shanna]

SigGal- Thanks for the encouragement! 5 days down, 15 to go...I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

[InTheAirForceAgain]

I've got one that happened in February, less than a few weeks after my husband left on his first deployment. I picked up the stomach bug going around the base and spent an entire day vomitting. The next day I couldn't walk and was in a ton of pain because of severe dehydration. I called my key spouse (the acting squadron CO's wife, I'm a lowly LT's wife) who calls her husband to decide which ER to take me to. He calls the base clinic, which does not handle emergencies, and discovers they can administer IV's in flight medicene.

An LT is dispatched to deliver me to the clinic, luckily one I knew. I hadn't showered in 3 days at this point and probably looked quite scary. After getting 2 IV bags, my key spouse walks in to see me, she's not alone. The LT and CO are there too, and in confirmation of just how scary I must have been, they refused to come in and talked to me from the hallway.

I then had to walk through the clinic (specifically the pharmacy area where everyone on base must have been at that moment) pushing an IV stand to the lab and radiology for tests.

Of course, when I went back the next week for follow-up bloodwork, the phlebotomist remembered me... as the chick who looked like death warmed over with the IV. Fantastic. And the entire squadron, deployed and Rear Det, got a good laugh at how the acting CO had to rescue me from a deathly illness. Lovely, I now have a reputation.

[Caroline]

I just stumbled on this website, and boy am I glad I did! I feel a little bad for saying this, but I have had quite a laugh reading all of your horror stories! It's so nice to see everyone have such a good attitude about all of the craziness us military spouses go through. So I just wanted to say thank you for a good morning belly laugh!

[Butterfly Wife]

AWTM - your car-pukey story is great with the Coach purse being the most serious victim. I don't have any such horror stories . . . yet.

[gobaby]

Well, here goes my attempt, yesterday I went in to have my windshield replaced (it had a crack I had been staring at for a year and I had been talking to it for this whole deployment) and only AFTER they busted out the old one did they realize that the one they had ordered in was the wrong one- so now it would be a 4 hour wait for the new one to be delivered- I should have known not to choose the cheapest place- and now NO car - and no one to pick up me up who cared who was within 10,000 miles- and I am in the worst part of town and they DON'T let customers use their rest rooms...fun... I had plenty of time to think it over as I was walking the gravel shoulder of the road down to a rest room, but I DO know now who is listed on the marquee's at all the strip joints.

[Aly]

All i hve to say is THANK THE LORD that i had an extra sweater with me. location: san antonio for hubby's AIT graduation. Situation: trying to move all the junk hubby stored up for 4 months, plus luggage that i took to spend 2 weeks with him in town and attend graduation in time, after loading the car by myself. epidemic: WORST period in the history of mankind! i was doing fine in the early morning when i went to drop off my hubby on base. came back to the hotel, noticing my flow suddenly got a little heavier. no problem. only 2 more bags left to put in car. i would do them after i shower. shower done, dressed and putting bags in car all in under 30 minutes (20 of those shower alone). by the time i'm hauling the second bag in car, i am completely stained, and need to go take another shower and wash my clothes. fast forward to gradution ceremony 45 minutes later: sit down to watch whats going on. stain again. by the end of the ceremony, i'm literally praying that i did not stain the seat i was on and that i would have time to wrap my sweater around my waist. finally get to inform hubby of whats going on, but cannot resolve issue until 2 HOURS later cause he has to check out immediately after the ceremony. finally have to change clothes in PX cause there was no other place available. the next 4 hours on the road trip back home??? barely even a drop!!!!!! see, you don't even need kids to have one of the really bad stories for this poker game!

[Kel]

Deal me in-
On our move I had a babysitter lined up for when the movers would be packing up the house so the kids didn't have hte "omg they are stealing my toys". Movers were scheduled to come at 7am and the babysitter called at 645 and said her daughter had a high fever and couldn't come and of course Dh is in the field. So i have a 18 mo old and a 6 mo old and 4 packers in my house and a dog. What could be worse you ask. How abotu the fact that her daughter played wiht mine the night prior and Harmoine decided that it was time to get sick.. and get sick she did all over hte mover that was pcking her toys.. It was mortifying. I went for the towels to clean it up WELP they had already packed those, paper towels, couldn't locate them so tissues it was. Tissues and vomit are NOT friends. Needless to say that was not fun. and i do not think that man will ever come to move my house again.. LOL

[Lemon Stand]

Oh, there are too many to count. Let's see, the volcano? The Hurricane? The earthquake? The snake? The delivery room? The rat? Trip home to Maine with 14 month old, 6 week old premie baby with me in leg brace to hip and air cast on opposite leg? (All on one tour of Guam?) Sorry, I'm laughing so hard right now the kids are staring.

I tried to write about the rat figuring that it was the shortest story I could think of but after I got done, I realized that it was too long for the comments section, so I have posted it over on my blog.

If you want the rest of the story... http://lemonademadedaily.blogspot.com/2007/05/
i-raise-you-rat.html

[LAW]

go read Lemon Stand's one. ew ew... she WINS! ew ew ew ew ewwwwwww

LAW

[angela]

I have one, but mine is not funny. We found out on a Sunday afternoon that our 7 year old nephew had just died in a freak accident. My hubby's family was going crazy and we needed to go the 11 hours back to be with them. The army wouldn't let my hubby leave unitl Red Cross was involved. The family called ever 15 minutes asking if we had left yet. They don't understand the army that you can't just get up and leave. Almost 24 hours later we were off. It was almost dark and we were about 3 hours into the trip. Family still calling every few minutes asking us how close we were. The car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. We drive it to the nearest town and stopped at the ONLY gas station there. We call our family who is upset even more. We call our car's warrenty place to see what we need to do. The town wasn't even on their maps. In this town was no hotel, cabs, car repair place, or even a place to eat. You know those car rentals that say "we pick you up" when they found out where they were they refused us. I was crying and we were so stressed out. The kids had chips and pure junk from the gas station for supper and we were stranded. Did I mention our cell phone charger for the car was broke? The gas station would only let us use their outside plug so my husband sat by the phone and I sat in the car with 3 kids with the doors locked. After a few hours the warrenty place called back and said a wrecker was coming and since the closest one was over an hour away it would be a while. Since we were stranded when the wrecker showed up we asked if he would give us a ride to where our car was going or we would sleep on the sidewalk. The wrecker guy and the 5 in my family fit in a truck that only sets 3. We get to the next town over where the car place assured us they would be waiting for us and of course the lights were off and they were gone. The wrecker left our car and took us to a hotel. The place was so sleezy I was scared the kids would catch something from the sheets. The wrecker said the town we were in was nothing but drug heads and the only reason he went there after dark was because he heard we had kids and feared for their safety. My husband walked a long ways down the road late at night to get to a Taco Bell and get us something to eat. Family still calling every couple of minutes asking us when we will get there. Next morning find out there is no rental cars at the Chevy place where our car was so my hubby walked down the road to the Ford place. The one they promised us wasn't there when they went to get it so they had to get the paperwork done on another one. Then we were off on the road again. We went to the funeral and even stayed a week to try and calm everyone down. My hubby is the glue that holds everyone together. We went back through that town on the way home and our car hadn't even been worked on yet. A week later and they still hadn't gotten to it. Another week goes by and my hubby had to take another day off to drive all the way back to that state and pick up our car and drop off the rental. Just so you know when your car warrenty says it covers rentals they may not mean out of state rentals and if you car takes almost 2 weeks to fix. We are still fighting that one. Well I know my story wasn't funny, but maybe it will make you guys feel better about what you have been through. The whole time we were stranded and I was crying I just kept telling myself that we would be OK. My husband's brother just lost his son and as long as are kids were safe it didn't matter that we were sleeping in a hotel that you only see in horror movies.

[Haole_Wahine]

Love it. Husband was boomer submariner, port 3 month, patrol 3 months. During patrol, only communication was one sided -- 3 29 word family grams a patrol. Before first patrol from Pearl, Husband decides working wife and 2 daughters (under the age of 3) need a six week old beagle puppy to keep us company during his patrol. Puppy Barney hates being alone, and 3 of the 5 neighbors in the connected townhouses work nights sleep days.
One month into patrol, Captain calls Husband and H's best friend into his "state room". "Son your wife has sent you a troubling family gram, but I want you to know we are here to support you, and family services will do what they can for her." Husband and friend are frantic. captain continues, "It seems she has given your son away!" Husband, "Sir, I don't have a son, just two daughters!" Family gram reads -- "Could not take it anymore. Gave Barney away. Miss you. Love " Husband and friend laughing so hard, Captain thinks they're crying. Finally, H's friend screeches "Barney's a dog." Story is the talk of the sub, and 2 months later, the talk of all the families. Waiting for the plane to bring the crew home was a riot. Captain insists he has to meet me -- "the young lady that provided the hardest task he has ever faced as a 'leader of men'." It's okay, by the time we left Pearl 5 years later, we had 2 Afghans, a Sealyham Terrier, a Kerry Blue Terrier, and her 6 week old puppy, that the Navy had to fly back to the mainland, and because the flight from Hawaii was late, and we missed our connecting flight, had to pay for all 5 dogs to be put up in a very nice hotel with us. YES, ladies, their is a GOD, and he loves military wives.

[Deirdre]

I Love you girls!!! HOOAH! im giggeling so hard I cant remember what I was going to post!!!!
omg... the rat the illness.. the drug den... sheesh im not half as tough as ya'll..

[US Navy Wife]

Oooooh! I'm in.
I married my sailor in November 1998. He left for Bahrain less than a week later. I had an ID card and that's it. Three months later, we had approval to join him and the paperwork 'fun' began. My first military move with a 6 year old... and hubby is 1/2 a world away.

The day of the pack out, I was arranging last minute things when my son comes staggering down the stairs screaming, "I'm BLIND." I rushed him down the stairs and to the kitchen sink to flush his eyes, all the while trying to find out what he has in them. (He had been entertaining himself by laying on his back with a glow-stick over his head... methodically bending it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... until it POPPED and dropped that chemical and bits of plastic into his eyes.)

He was very uncooperative with me, confident that a mother wouldn't know what to do. So, even though the movers were due in about an hour, I had no choice but to hightail it to the hospital ER.

The ER put a numbing agent in his eyes and flushed them. No permanent damage, but his eyes were nearly swollen shut.

Just as we drove into the parking lot at my condo, the movers were PULLING OUT. No no no. They couldn't leave! It took a total of TEN months to get this far... who knows when I'd get another pack out!

I blocked them with my car. I ended up handing over all the money in my wallet (just over $75) to bribe them to re-park and do my pack out. Even seeing the red swollen 6 year old didn't soften their hearts to my predicament.

Come to think of it, no subsequent PCS has been that much better. *sigh*

[wiese]

quality of movers:

PCS from CO to TX.

Movers in CO were College students trying to make a living. They were nice and went out of there way to do a great job.

Movers in TX were drunk by the end of the unloading. My husband was locked up in something: school? formation? PT? Who knows. I was left with four derelicts. I continued to offer them snacks and water because the temp was above 100. I finally got it when one decided it was time to let the cat out of the bag and accidently tell me the news. They remained appropriate and nice so I never complained.

[sticks]

I'm in with proof that nothing has changed.

1972 Virgina Beach, Va (Little Creek) My mother was trying to pack us out for a PCS back home to Pensacola. My two middle sisters (there were four of us total ages 17, 13,12 and 9) were extremely sick with strep like symptoms and the docs couldn't figure out what was wrong. One of my sisters had been sick for almost two months and the other for about a month. The Navy had issued strict cleaning guidelines for the housing we were moving out of. So, my poor mother is trying to take care of two sick children and immaculantly clean the two story townhouse we lived in. That done she packed us all in the station wagon along with the dog and drove home to Pensacola. We had been gone for a year and a half and a real estate company had rented our house out for us while we were in VA. My mom had notified them of our arrival date, told them she had two sick kids and needed to have everything ready to move in. We arrived. The house had been vacant for months. Ivy was growing in the windows and all over the walls inside the house. The walls were also covered with mold and mildew. It was unfit to live in. So, then she is trying to clean that house and still taking my sisters to the hospital. Come to find out they both had Mono. My mother was about to lose it and then my step-father called from VA and told her that the command had come in the inspect the house and instead they condemed the place. All that hard work cleaning and they decided it wasn't fit to live in.

[phyllis]

Wow you ladies make my life seem so tame. I only had a 2year old fall out of bed and break a collar bone. I was told not to let him play for 4 weeks. I have had it easy. Thanks for the laughs.

[Nikki]

I'm in...even though Lemon Stand wins. EEWWWW, GROSS!!!!

Berlin Germany, 1991. The quarters had been cleaned, inspected, and packed out. My dad had gotten all the paperwork done, the dog and the hampster had gone through their vet physicals, and my brothers and I were shipped en mass to the airport with minimal protesting. We got there the required 2 hours before the flight and sat. And sat. And sat. Turns out, the hydrolics on the airplane were broken, and they needed a new part to flown in from Hamburg. No problem, 1.5 hr delay, tops. Flight from Hamburg comes in. No part. Okay, now it will come in on the flight from Frankfurt. 2.5 hr delay. Now we're worried we'll miss our connecting flights in New York. Plane gets in from Frankfurt, NO PART. So now, they'll get it from Paris. 4+ hr. delay. All hope for connecting flights are now lost, and we're hoping to get out of Berlin that day. They feed us lunch for free to keep the passengers from rioting. Finally, the part arrives from Paris. Plane gets fixed and they load us on faster then I have ever seen people loaded onto a plane in my life.

*Time the plane was supposed to leave: 12 noon (approx)
*Time we got to the airport: 10am
*Time the plane actually took off: 9:45pm
With about 110 pissed off passengers who had completely missed their connecting flights, 6 dogs, a couple cats and one very agitated hampster.

My father hold to this day that having to put us all up in hotels, refund our tickets and such is one of the reasons PAN AM went bankrupt not too long after.

It's not the flu or a dead rodent, but I was in pantyhose for about 20 hrs. Did I mention it was also my 15th birthday?

[Penny]

LOL.. Oh my gosh, I can't stop laughing at Angela's story.. I was laughing so hard I almost woke the the baby up. So far I'm new to this so nothing major yet. DH deployed last year and I had to move everything from TX to LA to move back in with my parents ( I was 5 months pregnant & living alone), the only problem I faced was DH's aquarium he'd bought during the summer. He paid a lot of money to buy all sorts of fish and little sharks and whatnot. Well, it's a 9 1/2 hour drive from Ft. Hood to New Orleans and the fish weren't going to make it in little baggies of water. No one I knew could take the fishies so my only choice was to flush them down the toilet. Well, actually I kinda made a friend of mine do it for me.. :p.. So, we've got 2 girls in the bathroom and all you hear is a "plop" sound when one would hit the water in the toilet. I was laughing/crying too hard b'c I was sad about the fish since I'd gotten accustomed to them and all I kept thinking was when my little brother (3 yrs at the time) took one of the fishes out and flushed it down the toilet. He'd just seen "Finding Nemo" half a dozen times. He said he was "freeing the fishes" .. Could've used him then now that I think about it.. DH wasn't too happy when he finally was able to call & found out his precious fishes & tiny sharks had been "freed" .. Hopefully the move back to TX in a couple of months won't be too bad, though I'll be myself with a dog and newborn child.. You ladies give me strength hehe.. :)

[Heather P.]

OK, I got one for you. In 2000, after a month of marriage, my husband left in May to move us to San Diego. A few weeks later, I drove with my oldest son (only son who was 3 at the time) and my best friend to San Antonio to pick up my daughter before driving to Cali. On the way we stopped at this horrible Burger King in Atlanta where this kid passed out in front of us splitting his head and terrifying my son. Then around Houston (we'd never been to TX before) we had to find a hospital due to the fact I was having a miscarriage. My best friend had to comfort my screaming 3 year old who just wanted his mom. Finally, we made it to San Antonio and as we left there to drive to Cali, my 2 year old daughter broke out in chicken pox, then got one infected and had to be hospitalized in El Paso for a week. Imagine keeping a 2 year old in bed and a 3 year old busy in a tiny hospital room for a week! Worst trip of our lives! Luckily the beautiful sights of San Diego brought us a little happiness. Good luck to all the rest of you!

[Ann M.]

This is so fun :) In '03, my husband decided to change rates and went to Pensacola for school. I moved in with my parents in NY because I didn't have a license. Of course he ends up in C school. Halfway through, he calls me complaining of a stomach ache. Later he calls me screaming in pain. I threaten to call the QD and have the watch drag him to the Navy ER up the road if he won't go by choice. He goes. They think it is a kidney stone, run some tests and decide it isn't. They give him muscle relaxers and let him go. He calls me again, more screaming. I volunteer to fly out there, he says no. Next morning he says he will go to sick call to get excused from class. I get a phone call from a corpsman to tell me they think it's my husband's appendix and they're bringing him back to the hospital. Again he tells me to stay at home. Then someone explains to him what the cure for appendicitis is, and it's all, "yes baby, can you fly out here?" I hitch a ride with some neighbors to JFK and wait for hours to get on the plane. Costs me $600. One way. Did I mention we weren't getting separation pay yet? I finally get there at midnight. Next morning, his CO comes in to talk to us and asks me where I'm staying. No idea because I can't stay in his barracks and the hotels are all damaged from a hurricane. CO says he'll find somewhere--he hooks us up, but it's on the other base five miles away. Great but I've only been driving for a week. I had to pack up his room (which was a disaster), check him out of the barracks, get him from the hospital and check him into the new place. A week into his convo leave, I get pink eye. I have to go back to that same hospital and see the same doctor, who tells me I don't have pink eye without actually looking at my eye. When I show it to her, she leaves the room and has someone else write up my papers. The last week of my husband's recovery, he has to drive because I'd forgotten to pack my glasses and I couldn't wear my contacts. No painkillers for him. Then I got to repack by myself, load up the car alone, and move him BACK into his barracks on the proper base.

Yay.

[Melanie R Bush]

My first PCS was from NC to TX. I called to make sure we were set up for a move, and the woman on the phone assured me that that the we were set up--that the movers don't always call ahead. Unfortunately, the girl must have been new because the day of pack up movers were supposed to be there at 8 am, and at 10 am, when they had not shown up, I called and the move was not set up.

Not only was the move not set up, but the next pack up we could get was 10 days from then. At first, they tried to blame it on me, too, but for some reason, I had taken the girls name, and she actually confirmed that I had called.

I decided to go ahead and go because I had already turned off all of the utilities and had actually packed the cat and dog so they would be out of the way of the movers.

Thank goodness my mother-in-law still lived there. She took power of atty over our crap and sat there while the packers unpacked everything I packed and threw it into new boxes, still had to pay for an extra months rent.

Finally got all of our stuff 3 months after we moved here. Unfortunately, we had already bought alot of other stuff I almost told them to take it away.