So I realize I’ve talked a lot about our travels, which is
an excellent benefit to being stationed where we are; but I’ve said very little
about the rest of life with the military and marriage. Both of these things
have the extreme potential to put you in the loony bin or drive you to murder
if you take them too seriously. The trick, in my opinion, is humor. It’s the
only way to survive – especially if you’re dealing with both of these afflictions
(marriage and mustard gas). Sometimes
you may have to really search for the humor in something, other times it just
happens naturally.
Today, it was a natural occurrence for me.
I went in for a long overdue trim of the hair hesitant of
every step. Since we moved here, my hair cutting experiences have always left me with a sore scalp. I often feel as
though I'll have no hair left to cut by the time they finish brushing it.
In the States, it can feel as though you’ve gone in for a head massage and
makeover rather than to trim off some split ends. In Deutschland, it can feel
like you've accidentally signed up for torture survival training!
Today, however, I was relieved to find someone who treated
my scalp as if it were actually attached to a living thing. She spoke English,
as well, so we got to chat a bit. Normally I’m quiet when I’m in the chair – a combination
of my introverted tendencies and not wanting to distract the person holding
sharp scissors close to my face. But with the pleasant surprise of comfort, I
found myself fairly conversational.
The normal questions came up, of course – How long have you lived
here? Do you plan to travel? Do you live nearby? So it wasn’t long before we
discovered that we’re actually neighbors! She lives in the building across from
mine, so we empathized over the things we like and dislike about stairwell
living. (For those of you who have never lived in overseas military family
housing, ‘stairwells’ is the common term for the apartment-like structures we
often live in. A stairwell is exactly what it sounds like – an
indoor flight of stairs. In this case, however, it also refers to the group of
apartments that reside off that particular stairwell, and sometimes the
families that live there. It might sound silly – but most of us are just glad it
isn’t an acronym!) Our most emphatic sympathies came over the subject of all
the noise in the stairwells: dogs,
people talking, children, soccer games, doors slamming, etc.
To properly understand the noise issue, you have to
understand our stairwells. First of all, you can hear just about everything
that happens in the stairwell itself because of the echo created by the concrete walls that enclose
it. When someone enters, assuming it’s a quiet afternoon, you can
usually hear every step they take on the way to their apartment. Secondly, the
closer they get to your front door, the louder their steps are.
The next thing you must understand is the layout of our
particular apartments, most notably the proximity of the bathroom to the front
door. Not all units are created equally, so I’ve drawn a diagram of our own unit:
The funny thing about the sound issue is that if you’re in
the bathroom, you can’t hear it if someone is shouting to you from the doggie
tap dancing arena (also known as the living room); but you can hear
conversations being held in the stairwell crystal clear.
This, of course, opens you up to a myriad of concerns
stemming from the main question: If I can hear them... can they hear me?
For most of us, the bathroom is a private place. When we go
in and close the door, we like to imagine that all sounds are blocked to outside ears, all smells are contained, and pretty much that what happens in the
bathroom… stays in the bathroom. We may know better, but that doesn't stop us from pretending. Even if someone hears something, smells something... whatever. It's family!
But with this setup, who knows?!
Could someone
walking by hear that occasionally audible ‘plunk’ as you drop the kids off at
the pool? Do your neighbors get to boogie to your morning shower tunes? Exactly
how many listened last fall as you lost your fest food and sang your praises to
the porcelain throne after that one last pint of ale?
For some this could be more embarrassing than others.
But the one fear that I thought I was alone on, until
confiding in my oh-so-gentle hair tamer, was the one I get when I’m on the
toilet and can hear someone coming up the stairs...
They’re coming for me!
…well. Not exactly for
me, but it’s more the idea that they’re going to accidentally walk in my door thinking it’s their own.
This thought is equally adrenaline-inducing whether you pee
with your door open or shut, we agreed. Why? Because many of us have the desire to use the
facilities as soon as we get home, and it’s all the more convenient when the
front door leads right to the
bathroom door! There wouldn’t be enough scenery between the two to indicate to
someone ‘wrong house!’ before things were seen that could not be unseen.
Even if someone came in and it wasn’t their first instinct to use the restroom, I think it would still be awkward knowing that some stranger was in your home while you were taking care of business.
Now, I’m sure many of you are thinking, ‘Don’t you lock your door?’
Well the answer is yes! Yes, I do. But our locks are funny
and outdated. They have three modes, dependent upon how far you turn your key:
(1) Death Trap – the door is locked and you must use a key to get in
or out of your own home.
(Very reassuring with how often our fire alarms go off, I must say.)
(2) Hotel House – the door is locked to the outside. You can open it from the inside, no problem;
but if it shuts behind you? You need the key to get back in.
(3) Free for All! – the door can be opened from the inside or outside, no key necessary; it is
simply unlocked.
That’s right. One click to the left too many and the
community is free to roam your quarters! We don’t have a convenient little
turny-knob on the inside that we can easily twist to lock the door after
letting ourselves in. Others do, but for some reason our building does not. We
have to use the key again. Now, after lugging up a few armfuls of groceries,
you might well imagine how one might forget to re-lock the door.
When broaching this fear to my combed companion, I was
hoping she wouldn’t think I was entirely crazy. I certainly never expected her
to share this toilet trauma. So when she did, I think we both died laughing out
of relief! Someone else shares my
irrational fear! It was truly a bonding experience.
‘My husband thinks I’m
crazy!’ she strained between bouts of giggles, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. But we knew
better.
When I got home, I realized that I’d had a survival moment.
Marriage can be stressful and infuriating at times. The military tends to make
a habit out of pissing you off. Surviving the combination of these two things
means you’re more rare than a millionaire but receive much less comfort and
stability. It can be hard to laugh sometimes… but it’s so essential.
And sometimes, you just have to laugh about the things that
literally scare the crap out of you!
(To those grammar-sensitive individuals out there, I fully realize that 'more rare' should probably be 'rarer'. It's driving me nuts, too! But it just doesn't have the same ring, does it?)