Sticking My Neck Out One Last Time

Turtles at Mitsuike Park

There's a moving van or two parked in every townhouse cul-de-sac, boxes stacked up along the sidewalks, and Japanese workers kicking their shoes off and slipping them back on as they scurry in and out of front doors. Invitations to sayonara parties are flying through cyberspace. It's that time of year again. PCS (Permanent Change of Station) season is upon us.

There is no better time of year to visit Second Hand Rose, the base thrift shop operated by our Officer Spouses' Club. There's a weight limit on the household goods we can take with us when we move and exceeding that limit means paying out of our own wallets so we cram china, rice cookers, golf clubs, books, and toys into our car trunks and head over to the thrift shop donation window on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Someone unloaded an entire Talbot's wardrobe last week and someone else got rid of every Star Wars book ever published.  .

Between our thrift shop and our gift shop, the Officer Spouses' Club raised nearly $70,000 this year. Now it's time to start doling that money out to worthy local causes. This is my third year on the committee that does the doling. I had hoped to lend a voice of reason and experience to the deliberations but, sadly, I no longer have the patience required for committee work.  About halfway through today's four-hour meeting I had to squeeze my hands between my thighs to stop myself from drumming my fingernails on the table.  Drumming her fingernails on the table was how my mother expressed impatience with rambling monologues (usually emitting from the mouth of her oldest daughter).

The Ancient Mariner and the husband of another committee member will deploy in four days.  It will be December before our family can spend another weekend together.  Why are we meeting on a Saturday morning?  Why couldn't we meet during the week when our husbands were working?

Why do we dole out money just once a year, in June, rather than two or three times a year?  The chairman has decreed that all organizations receiving money from us must spend it by December 31 but a third of the requests are from high school coaches wanting help with the costs of student lodging at Far East Tournament events, most of which occur in the spring.

We are told that our base commander has revised the regulations governing how we can dole out our funds and that none of our money can leave Japan.  Three committee members resign themselves to this turn of events while the fourth -- the one squeezing her hands between her thighs -- thinks it's likely the base commander simply stepped out of the room for a potty break during Command Leadership School and missed part of the session on how his boss's boss's boss expects spouse groups around the world to pitch in to cover the $60,000 annual printing and postage costs to distribute guidelines to families of individual augmentees and rising Navy leaders.

A school parent wants $5,000 to equip each classroom with an emergency bag the teacher can grab when exiting the room during an emergency.  Three months after the earthquake/tsunami, the principal still isn't sure what items those bags should contain but $5,000 seems sufficient to cover the costs.  Someone notes that the principal can obtain a time-tested list of items to be included in an emergency bag at the city's Earthquake Center two blocks from the base.  She then quips, semi-seriously, that she'd rather spend the $5,000 on training the teachers how to behave calmly and professionally during a disaster, something that is drilled into Japanese teachers.

Maybe it would be better if she shut her mouth and started drumming her fingers.