Christmas Packages

This post is dedicated to my niece, Morgan, who is my Army wife kindred spirit, faithful blog follower and descendant of Meme whose stories will live on for generations to come!

Coming up to the holiday season I was getting a lot of packages from home. That was the bonus to being the poor lonely soldier overseas during the holidays --my family sent me Christmas gifts AND sympathy gifts as well! I got lots of stuff! As was the policy, each soldier had to pick up their own packages from the company mail room, which was only open about an hour or two each duty day. The mail room was located in the company building just down the hall from my room.

As required, all packages sent overseas had to have a customs declaration on it in which you had to list the contents of the package. On one occasion, I received a package from home that had been opened and resealed and on it a sticker declaring it had been opened and searched by customs. I wasn't sure if that was on the US end or German end --but nothing was missing or broken and I assume it was a random/standard procedure. The bummer about the customs declaration is that it revealed the contents of the package, therefore spoiling any big surprise inside. I usually tried to ignore the label as best I could. Most people were very generic in their description like, if it was a sweater they'd just write "clothes". That was okay but I still didn't like to see what was written on the label.

One day I got a slip that I had packages to pick up. Glory! Packages from home were the best! This day though was really weird. As I was walking to the company people were looking at me and snickering. I got into the building and male soldiers were saying things to me like, "Hey Dodge, how's your panties?" and other similar things, some not so "G" rated. I had no idea what was going on but I felt like I was in the midst of some stupid prank. Did someone break into my room and steal my underwear? Did I have a hole in my uniform? Did someone again steal my laundry? I was so confused but mostly paranoid. What exactly was everyone talking about?

I continued on to the mail room and picked up my many packages --cuz my family just loved me like that --I got lots and lots of them for days and days! The mail clerk that handed me my packages, a male soldier (there weren't a lot of female soldiers to go around these parts) he smiled and said something like, "Enjoy your panties!"

I took my packages back to my room and assuming all the panty talk had something to do with those packages, I sat down on my bed and read the label on each one. The mystery was finally solved when I got to one package that had a return address of Cecil Dodge, East Prairie, Missouri and read:

Fruit Cake

Cookies

Panties

Grandmother! Cecil Dodge was my grandmother, Meme as we affectionately called her --Lord bless that woman's soul! I mean come on --she gave no thought to the fact that her description had to be that literal. I'm sure it did not occur to her I'm a SOLDIER (trying to play the tough part --at least on the days I wasn't falling out of PT formations) living with MALE SOLDIERS (immature ones at that). The last thing I wanted on any of their minds was me and my panties! Panties! Why in the world did she choose that word to put on the declaration label? And how practical was that package? It was so grandmother-ish ---- Fruitcake for the holiday season, cookies to share with my nice soldier friends --and some fresh panties. Can you just imagine her thought process?

For days and days I couldn't be seen any place without someone making a "panties" comment to me. Apparently, the mail clerks got such a big kick out of it they proceeded to share the info with the entire company OF MALE SOLDIERS.

The fruitcake never got eaten (do any of them?), the cookies were in crumbles by the time they got to me so after picking out a few big pieces, I threw the rest away. The panties well, that's none of your business!

My dear grandmother! I miss her so.

For those following the Army stories, this post jumps ahead a bit --so far, we're only in the October fall time frame. I decided to jump ahead to post this story in memory of my grandmother, June 10th was the 1st anniversary of her sweet journey to Glory.