... oh ... and you know the best time to go shopping at different grocery stores to find the "markdown" items ...and consider yourself holier than thou that you scored 2 boxes of Hamburger Helper microwave singles for 50 cents a box! Woohoo.

shortone,

Now that makes you one super-shopping Junkie!

Gran

...when your husband asks to go with you to search for special gifts for a Birthday Box for one of your Warriors.  He comes from across the store with a huge smile...he's found a Swiss Army Knife, an insulated coffee mug, an electronic game, a reading light, a small pencil sharpener, and a great find...a pair of wool blend Fox River socks for $1.00!  Shortone, Woohoo, indeed! 

...when you're sending the "family" musical birthday candle (that won't "blow out" LOL) to your Warrior.

Brenda 

 

 

.

...After lurking a long, long time, I have to contribute this one,as it just cracked me up:

I work two jobs and attend school full time, so it's sometimes tough to get to the post office.  Thankfully, I can drive "my soldiers/sailors" packages to my mother's home on a Sunday and know she'll send 'em out on Monday. 

Well, Dad called me today to report this one from yesterday:

He was upstairs in the study, when he heard my mother yell out, "Michael! Michael!  The kitchen's on fire!   Get the mail! The mail!"

She was referring to saving the soldiers'/sailors' care packages. Heh.  Hooyah, Mom.

Mead
Ps... ;) The packages survived.  Dad put out the small oven fire.

When you send all your soldiers postcards from the various stops during vacation, but none to your family and friends. (oops... sorry ya'll)

When you make a special effort to collect bags of shells on the beach for each contacts next package.

When there isn't a man in my house, but I have more Right Guard deoderant than the local Wal-mart in my spare bedroom.

When my co-workers know to place all empty boxes in my office - not the recycle stack.

When even the cat jumps into the box wanting to be shipping... OK OK - so maybe she doesn't realize where the box is going - I still know she loves our troops! :)

 

Hello!

You must be an Anysoldier Junkie if you have an old cargo van and it isn't used much so it just sits and you keep it full of empty boxes just in case there is one just the right size for the next shipment going out and when the nieghbor found out and he asks if you need more boxes and you can't say no......door

EVERYONE in my home is a support junkie... my cat, Pearl, knows enough about packing the boxes that she tries to drop her catnip toys into the boxes as I fill them!

Hi Free spirit, I read that someone else washed towels before they sent them over.  Do the sheets and towels have to be washed?  Do the soldiers think they the items are used when they get them?  I thought they had to stay in their packages.  I guess I'm just confused.

Gran:

Funny thing is that Hubby actually does more of the shopping than I do.  He takes several different prescription meds, so has to pick them up regularly, and ALWAYS goes to a couple of places to shop before he comes home. 

 
LOL!  The memories...

 

You know you are a junkie when you shop for your meds based on who gives a shopping carrd for transferred or new prescriptions...and what they have that a warrior might want! 

(did that for a YEAR when my back was out...right when i got started here in 04/05...) 

Chyenne,

They don't need to be washed; that's up to you.

A lot of soldiers don't have very good laundry service; some have reported that their laundry doesn't come back with that freshly laundered smell.  So some of us like to wash these items before we send them...and often tuck the dryer sheet into the box, with the hope that they will still smell fresh upon arrival.  Also, brand new sheets are often stiff from the chemicals used in their manufacture (aka, "sizing").  It's nice for the soldier to get soft, sweet-smelling sheets, ready to be put on the bed straight out of the box.

If you don't want them to think the linens are used, you can include a note that explains why you washed them.  But I don't think most soldiers care, as long as they aren't stained or torn.

Mary:

You sit down with your 21 year old son who doesn't have a job and who sits at home all day and tell him he has to get a job and help pay for household expenses like his younger 19-year-old brother does.  That's when the 21-year-old says, "Of course you don't have enough money.  Half our money ends up in Iraq". 

A few years ago my (then) 15-yr-old didn't own the verbal mastery to re-negociate an upcoming conflict in schedule (to which I would have easily agreed) but burst out "Mother's Day is stupid" and "I'm outt-a here".  On his return, I had just picked up the mail and was sitting on the stoop reading and re-reading long-traveled free mails from warriors-in-field.  "You help us remember home",  "I am stronger knowing you believe in me", "we send you Kevlar love", "I don't have one, but today you're my mom", and that precious one-time missive scratched into the surface of an AnySoldier postcard: "love you mom - MALS 26 FWD"  My own son sat down on the steps with me while I tried to explain that present or not, it wasn't some 'day' but the connection (& the belief in connection) that was celebrated.  So, I guess you know you're AnySoldier junkie, when it (also) helps share about life.   

You must be an AnySoldier Junkie if........you enter the "Send Joy Contest" by Canada Post in hopes of winning the grand prize of $10,000 or any of the 10 secondary prizes of $1000 so you can send your future parcels free.  Thus freeing up shipping cost money and using it for marine supplies/purchases.

You stop to appreciate.... and I mean REALLY APPRECIATE..... getting to put on a fresh pair of socks each morning!

You get something sticky on your hand in the supermarket, and you really realize that washing it off is as close as the store's public restroom. 

(Somebody posted the other day that he and his group had just taken their first shower in 45 days. Eek!)

...you give a friend who is a fellow AnySoldier junkie rolls of packaging tape as a Christmas gift!