Wednesday, May 09, 2007

3 Word Wednesday ...can you believe it? LOL




Welcome to Three Word Wednesday. Each week, BONE will post three (or more) random words. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something using all of those words. It can be a few lines, a story, a poem, anything. Bone'll also attempt to write something using the same three words.

Leave a comment if you participate. Many fun and interesting people might visit your blog.

This week's words are:
packed
cozy
anticipation


Sally knew this was coming. She and Harry had been together long enough for her to learn the routine. Every few years they got orders for a new location. It came with the job, the job Harry hated, but it provided quite nicely for them over all these years and so they accepted it.

Still Sally couldn't help the anticipation of what it would be like to move to a totaly different country. A country where the natives didn't speak english...but for the most part they would be on the base so it wasn't as if she had to learn a new language. And any encounters off the base property would be with natives who had learned some english...enough to get by and sell their products to the Americans with all the money. Money, isn't that what makes the world go round?

It took a lot of work to get all the necessary paperwork ready. Sally had to get a psychological evaluation and have her medical records checked before they would allow her to even go. She could only assume that they didn't want the expense of having to pack her up and send her home shortly after arriving.

Part of the snafus they ran into had to do with the fact that the position that Harry was taking was meant for someone going without a family (or solo). It seemed that no one in the office had ever figured out how to change the paperwork from an unaccompanied tour to an accompained (those are the military speak words for taking a new job without your family or with your family.) So they would get one part changed and then hit a new snag when the next part of the paperwork would still be for an unaccompanied tour. "Oh you won't be able to take that much of your belongings." "Oh that's right, this is now an accompanied tour...yeah your allowed this many pounds."

Speaking of the pounds, once all that was figured out their belongings had to be packed up. They sent packers to do the job. What a bunch of idiots! The moving company sent 3 packers...Sally thought they do this on purpose as they're are only two of them to keep an eye on the packers...so one gets to "run amock" with your belongings. She had to figure out which items should go to storage and which items should go with them. All the while making sure that they didn't take more than they were allowed. And also trying to make sure that her belongings were packed well enough that nothing would be broken.

Because of all the paperwork snafus Harry wasn't assigned living quarters until they arrived in country. So Sally and Harry had no idea when they were packing what furniture they should bring. They assumed that their quarters would be the ones the base had pictured on their website. So they had their items packed according to that. They were wrong but didn't know that yet.

Sally felt so weird watching her cozy home slowly reverting to the empty shell it had once been, like when they first bought it. Although it wasn't entirely the same as when they first bought it. Harry had put the shelf that Sally wanted up over the kitchen sink, that would be staying. There was also the storm door that they had put up together on the front door and all the window coverings that Sally had agonized over. The window coverings that Sally had cringed over when some stupid mother had let her toddler put his grubby hands all over when they were looking at the house they knew they had no intention of buying. Sally quickly learned that she wasn't cut out for tying to sell her house, it hurt too much to have someone be so critical of the place she had come to love.

Finally the time had come for them to leave. The house wasn't sold yet so they hired a realtor/shark who had a buyer for them before they even left the country...yeah, they had been taken, but at least the house was no longer a thing to worry about. As Harry and Sally drove their car to the nearest coast it began to snow...in June.

6 comments:

  1. Enjoyed your story, and reading a few of your other posts. I can't believe we haven't "met" yet at Bone's.

    --Gay

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  2. Your story is amazing...it sounds like it was based on all or part of someone's real life experiences. Could it be???

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  3. What a great story! It sounded very real...is it? Here's my try at using the words... My bags are almost packed and my dog sits next to me, all cozy and warm, full of anticipation.

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  4. I totally wanted to know if it was fiction or not too! Even though I'm pretty sure it is, you did a good job making it seem like non-fiction. :)

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  5. Good job, Renee. I really liked the next-to-last paragraph, describing how she felt to see her home becoming empty.

    Sorry it took me awhile to comment. I like to post mine before I go around and read others.

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  6. Anonymous12:47 PM

    nice...dont you just love all that paper work and rearranging of your life?!

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