Playing My Card

I have super powers. Okay, maybe not powers, but a superpower. It is the fact that my husband is deployed in the Middle East.

This power keeps RC Willey salesmen from overcharging me for delivery. This power helps a furniture salesman give me the sales price on a table when I ordered it only six hours before the sale started (I wasn't told of the sale when I bought it, I definitely would have waited). This power stops my kids dentist from chewing me out because I should have brought them in a month earlier. It also lets me in before hours at a movie theater to look for my military ID (which I found) when the manager has repeatedly told me not very nicely that it is not in the lost and found. This power helps me get bank tellers to cash gift cards in my husband's name when he is obviously not here to do it.  And it is the most powerful against police officers when they pull me over for going 58 mph in a clearly marked 50 mph. I also call this power, playing the Iraq card.

You see, I don't just blurt out that hey, my husband is deployed so you should just give me what I want. But if someone is being exceptionally difficult and I can naturally work the fact that Matt is gone into the conversation, I'm golden.

Some people (just a few) have accused me of using this power for my gain. To that I say you get no comment until your husband has been deployed for his third time.

Here in Salt Lake, we are very patriotic. But there are no Army bases around. People don't have a lot of experience with the comings and goings of military personnel. People are usually shocked when I tell them how long Matt has been gone. When I mention I'm a military spouse they bend over backward to help me out.

But in Junction City, Kansas, the town outside the base where Matt was stationed, it was a different story. Picture this: It's late. I'm at a store trying to get instructions from an ornery clerk who is getting ornerier because I don't understand what she is telling me. I decide to play my card. I tell her that I'm here for my husband's homecoming from Iraq and could she just explain it to me one more time how to get to a certain building on base. I get nothing. No ahhh, no how long has he been gone, no how neat. Then I realize it. Here, almost everybody's spouse-mother-father is coming or going from Iraq. There is nothing special about me here. I have no power here. It's like I'm Superman and Junction City is my planet Krypton. Everybody is special so now nobody is. I take a deep breath and take my map and try to find my way to the base without ending up on a firing range.

I guess my point is, is that you really have no idea what the people you meet in everyday life are dealing with. They could have a loved one fighting on foreign soil. They could have a friend that is sick. They could be losing their house. You really would never know unless they played their card. You would never know that they are thinking hey, be nice to me right now, it's been a hard day.

I guess you could say that if I'm like Superman, Matt is my yellow sun. He is the source of my power. And not just because he is deployed. But because he loves me. And I love him. Through thick and thin (obviously, I mean come on! Three times!)





My Yellow Sun