Uniform

For the last five years, I have been totally and utterly intimidated by John’s uniforms. When we first got married, he was wearing his blues and BDU’s all the time. I didn’t touch them, unless it was to take them to the dry cleaners. All the other wives I knew would commiserate about washing and ironing their husbands’ uniforms, but I did no such thing. If my husband wanted his uniform pressed, I handed him the iron.

When we graduated to flight suits, things got much better. They can be thrown in the washing machine, they don’t have to be ironed (hooray!), but every once in a while, the hubby will bring home new ones that need all kinds of crazy Velcro sewed on and rank sewed to the shoulders. In all honesty, John knows better than to bring them to me. When he gets new ones, he takes them straight to whomever it is that we pay to do all that nonsense, somebody that knows what they’re doing. Once out of desperation, he asked me to sew new rank to the shoulders. Luckily, his mother was in town visiting, so I was off the hook!

Yesterday, after hearing about this, a friend asked me to fix up her husband’s new flight suits for him. Something possessed me to say “yes.” I was terrified. Last night, I set to work cutting all the Velcro pieces to be sewn on. I started to attach one, but I got scared and stopped. This daunting project loomed over my head all morning, and when the kids laid down for their naps, I knew I had to take the plunge. It took me about an hour, but I did it! I have conquered the flight suit!

No matter what, though, I still refuse to iron anything.