Salute to Spouses Blog

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Christmas in July, or August, or April or …

I hate to see good neighbors PCS. But I love the boxes of goodies they drop on my doorstep as they hustle off to the airport.

Here in Hawaii the PCS bounty has been especially plentiful. Families generally continue to live in housing after their furniture is packed and taken away. They don’t say their final goodbyes until the morning they board a flight off this rock.

That means there’s still a good amount of food, cleaning supplies, random dishes, Tupperware and the occasional small appliance that just isn’t going to fit in the carryon.

Since I have five kids, people tend to drop their leftovers on my doorstep more frequently than at other houses. They know it will all no doubt be eaten, used, played with, loved and eventually, if the toddler gets it, broken.

When my neighbor left last month, she was tossing boxes out the back door as housing was entering the front for their final inspection. We gained a television, CD player, towels, bowls, a massive container of cleaning supplies and three boxes of food.

I haven’t had to buy cleaning supplies since. Sadly, the toddler has already gotten her sticky hands on the CD player. And the real win here, is the food box.

Not only did my kids pick on those snacks for at least a week, but there is the adventure of trying items you would never buy for yourself.

In Hawaii, where ethnic Asian food is plentiful, there’s a lot to dig in to. My neighbor had it all.

We’ve been grilling with all sorts of flavorful fish sauces and sipping unusual teas. And the wine, thank you!

She also left half the ingredients I needed for my daughter’s upcoming first birthday party.

We’ve dropped our fair share of stuff on an unsuspecting neighbor too as we’ve rolled out of town: televisions, toy wagons, Halloween costumes, dishes and the occasional goldfish.

It’s like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for neighborhood kids. It’s the cycle of life in a military community.

However, to my neighbors now, beware. There’s going to be good stuff in that box when we make our run for the airport. But there is also always, always, always nearly an entire box of beans in our last minute cleanout. This is a phenomenon I cannot explain.

Just know, whoever gets that box, is going to remember us for quite a while.

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