10 Ways You Know You Live in Military Housing
1. You have kids play in your front yard on a daily basis … even though you don’t have any kids of your own. (Aubrianna Rumbaugh)
2. You’ve thrown your hands up and muttered, “Get a map!” when the line at the Front Gate is held up by someone asking for directions. (Babette Maxwell)
3. Your neighbor calls you “Sir,” even when you’re taking out the garbage. (Shauna Anderson Laauwe)
4. You have to stop in the middle of the street at 5 p.m. every day so people can get out and salute in the general direction of the nearest flag. (Samantha Hooper)
5. You’ve tended someone else’s vegetables in the community garden because the people who planted them have moved. (Babette Maxwell)
6. Your tile flooring is the same tile that can be found in hospitals and schools. And your house is the same color as your neighbor’s, and their neighbor’s, and their neighbor’s… (Rachel Bilderback)
7. You have several serving dishes in your cabinet that don’t belong to you because your neighbors all brought you something when you needed it. (Babette Maxwell)
8. You can hear Reveille and Retreat being played every day from your living room. (Rachel Bilderback)
9. Your neighbors actually know what you’re going through. (Laura Vanderwerf, 2011 Coast Guard SOY)
And the number one reason you know you are living on base…
10. You’ve had this conversation on the phone:
You: “Well, it really was a fun…wait, hold on.”
(pause for sounds of jets/aircraft overhead)
You: OK, sorry. Anyway, it really was a fun get-together.”
You know you live on base OVERSEAS when:
1. You see the same people at the commissary, the Exchange, the gym and the post office. In. The. Same. Day. You start to wonder if you should all just carpool.
2. You carry Sharpies, customs forms and mailing boxes in your trunk.
3. You mentally add six months to every date you see as a habit from using coupons.
4. You can tell the commands are out or deployed because there are no men at the base chapel on Sunday.
5. You know exactly when your Space A paperwork expires.
