Um...is it too early to send a care package?

Well the dramatic pre-deployment phase ended...very anti-climatically might I add. It started yesterday when we found out the unit had been delayed and wouldn't be leaving for another 13 hours. As much as I hate to say it, that was bittersweet. Sure, it gave me more time with my husband, but we had already said our goodbyes, come to terms with the seperation, and were ready to go. A delay at that point was just like trying to pretend the inevitable wasn't about to happen.

We got there this morning bright and early only to find out the unit would be yet again delayed...this time by only 5 hours. Since it wasn't prudent to let the Marines return home, the 100+ deployers and their families hung around the gym parking lot for 5 hours. It started out with children laughing and wives crying and slowly escalated into people catching Zzzzz's on their duffle bags. Families slowly trickled off to get food and go home. By the time they marched us into the gym for final formation there was just a smattering of wives left here and there.

After final formation things picked up...and I mean REALLY picked up. They went from "hurry up and wait" to "get on the bus now!" I spent a brief 10 minutes permanently attached to my husband's neck, trying to configure myself comfortably around his M-16. Then he was ushered onto the bus. I stood and watched them drive off and that's when it hit me...my last image of him for the next 12 months is his hand slowly waving at me through the tinted windows of an old white bus.

I jumped in our truck and left the parking lot. I wasn't going to hang around any longer than necessary. I could see his bus 10 cars ahead of me in the traffic and I felt like I was trying to catch it. The bus would turn left and I would turn left. The bus would turn right and I would turn right. The closer I got to catching it, the farther away it got until I got to the part of the base that went back home. The bus went straight and I turned right.

Of course, the second I turned the corner my face broke into a giant grin. There, in the back seat of our truck, was a pair of pants. Not just any pair of pants, but the pants of a guy in his unit. This particular guy is always bumming rides from DH and every single time (without fail) he leaves something in the car. One time he left an entire Dominoes pizza. We had given him a ride over to the armory and he had an extra pair of jeans that he forgot to put in his storage unit. DH suggested he throw them in his sea bag as an extra pair of civies for R&R, but I guess he thought leaving them in the back of our truck would be better. Typical ;)


Oh ya...I got home and noticed my nose and arms are sun burned *sigh*.