25 August 2009

Silver linings.

So things have calmed down here at the Tucker & Swiss household... or maybe the past month has shell-shocked me into believing that normally ridiculous stuff is perfectly status quo. Either way, it is working for me.

I took Swiss's truck in for its 100,000 mile tune up. I figured it would be around $2,000 to get everything done and I was oddly blase about the whole thing. I mean, I was freaking out about the $1,000 we need to bring to closing, but this $2,000? No biggie. WTF?

Anyway, for the first time I played my "Deployment Card" when I dropped it off at the dealership... not because I thought it would net me a discount, but because I hoped it would prevent them from screwing me over. Like a pity play or something. Well guess what? Not only did they not screw me over, but the very nice gentleman I was working with found a way to give us a 25% discount on it all. That's $500 people. Five Hundred Dollars! SWEETNESS!

And one of my closest friends, Val, and her husband are letting me borrow their fancy HD digital video camera to document all of our stuff for the PPSO bit. Fun, no? But still, awesome that I don't have to take 3978 still pictures of our stuff, I can just whirl around the house capturing all of our junk. Rad.

So I guess all of this madness as of late has helped me be so much more Zen about Army life... you know, after all the stuff that has gone down the past few months, I am just so much more "mneh, whatever..." about mostly everything. I'm not sure it is 100% a good thing, but for now I'm chalking it up to a silver lining in the deployment. Hey, I'll take whatever I can get.

Oh, side note. We got one of the monthly HOOAH! Our Unit Rocks! (patent pending) newsletters from the guys in Iraq. I read it. I rolled my eyes no fewer than 8 times and nearly hurled twice. I mean seriously, who are these guys? And why is my husband SO different from them?

I think sometimes I forget that the majority of Army guys are decidedly not like Swiss. Which of course means the Army looses tons of cool points. But still. I can't deal with that brand of guy. Too much machismo. Too much dick swinging (yes, I did just say that, sorry, there's really no other way to make my point...). Too much false bravado. It's like being in a Rambo movie all the time, only with guys who you just know are less like Rambo and more like Tommy Boy (only less funny). Ugh. Anyway, it certainly makes me appreciate the rare breed of soldier I have. Smart, witty, kind, thoughtful and the type of badass who doesn't have to shout about it. Now that is something to be Hooah about.

5 comments:

liberal army wife said...

yay for the nice guy and the good neighbour. as for the "testosterone cowboy" mentality - it's little boys that never really grew up and have big toys that go boom; they feel the need to swing that as much as they can. One could infer something about over compensating.. but I won't.

LAW

Ash said...

you know, I read ONE "newsletter for spouses" from the forward command... and I found it to be such propaganda that I don't read them anymore. the guys in my husband's unit aren't like that, I guess the command just writes that crap to make them sound cool? ha. who knows.

Jennifer said...

Ah, the squadron newsletter! These days, I like to open them and read them to Jon. With all the EMPHASIS that IS IMPLIED by all the WE ARE AWESOME in each DETAIL.

Jon just rolls his eyes and walks away. Sounds like Swiss and Jon are a bit alike.

J.L.S. said...

Hahaha it sounds like Scott is much more like Swiss and much less like the majority of Army men! :)

Kanani said...

Nah.... Hey, I've seen those big testosterone guys throughout the years in private practice before they get their hernia repairs. They are not that tough!

The ones I can't take are the ones devoid of any humor.