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By SARAH SMILEY
Things That May Surprise You At A Spouse Club Meeting
I’ve been going to spouse club meetings for a long time, so nothing surprises me any more. But for those just starting out, here are a few things that may surprise you at a military spouse club meeting.1. Career woman by day, casserole baker by night.
At any given spouse club meeting, anywhere from five to 25 females may be present. Put that many women with tupperware in a room together, and someone is bound to volunteer to make egg salad for the wife who just had a baby.
Yes, even the woman who not five hours earlier was wearing a suit jacket and earning her own paycheck will find herself feeling panicked if she is not on the list to bring dinner to the new family. She might not even make dinner for her own family, but there is something about a circle of women, all with husbands waiting at home, that makes even the most domestically challenged woman feel compelled to prove her worth with a pound cake (that she will buy at the grocery store but put on a cake plate so that it looks like she made it).
Don’t be surprised if upon leaving a spouse club meeting, you sense that you are somehow stepping out of one dimension and into another. You can take a woman out of the 1950s, but she will still have a cabinet full of tupperware (even if they were wedding gifts) and a husband who wants dinner.
2. You and five other women have experienced gynelogical exams by the same man.
Remember in high school when you discovered that your homecoming date went to the dance with someone else the year before, and someone else the year before that? Remember how you felt? You will feel that same way if conversation at your spouse club meeting turns to having babies, and in particular, who delivered them. There are only so many OB/GYNs at the military hospital. Although you’d like to believe that the birth of your precious baby was a once-in-a-lifetime event for all involved, there is a good chance that “all involved” (except you and your spouse) have had that same experience with all of your friends, too.
Here is an excerpt from a conversation I recently overhead at a military function:
Wife #1: Who delivered your baby]?
Wife #2 (with sparkles in her eyes): Dr. S was my doctor. He is so great. Do you know that he got me the epidural less than five minutes after I asked for it? I hardly had to wait.
Wife #3 (frowning): Dr. S delivered my baby, too, but I missed the window for the epidural.
Wife #4: I had Dr. S. He was so good about getting me appointments when I needed them.
Wife #3 (growing angrier): I never got the appointment times I wanted!
Wife #2 to Wife #4: Isn’t Dr. S the best? All I had to do was leave a message with the nurse and Dr. S would make sure I got the appointment time that I needed.
Wife #4: And he’s so patient.
Wife #2: And smart…
Wife #3: He wasn’t patient with me.
Wife #4 and Wife #2 to Wife #3: Well maybe he didn’t like you as much as he liked us.
Wife #4: Gosh, it all feels so cheap in a way, doesn’t it?
3. Everyone is so different yet very much the same.
Spouse club meetings are filled with people from assorted backgrounds, hometowns, ages and personalities. You will not encounter many other situations where a 22-year-old newly-married spouse who goes to clubs on the weekends finds friendship in a 55-year-old mother of teenagers.
At first glance, you might think you will have nothing in common with anyone in your spouse club – because everyone will seem so different. But the truth is, everyone is more alike than you expect at first. In time you will notice that no one, not even your mother or best civilian friend, understands your life as it is right now in the same way as the women in your spouse club.
When your loved ones are on the same, ahem, boat (literally), all your differences begin to seem irrelevant. The best example is when the meeting adjourns and everyone heads to their cars. The hostess’ driveway will be filled with minivans, two-door sports cars, pick-up trucks and Cadillacs. But if someone is blocking you, just try yelling, “Could someone with the military stickers please move their car?”
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Sarah Smiley is the wife of a Navy pilot and daughter of a retired Navy pilot. She is the author of “Going Overboard: The Misadventures of a Military Wife” (Penguin/NAL), and her syndicated column “Shore Duty” appears weekly in military and civilian newspapers across the country. Read more about Sarah at her website, www.sarahsmiley.com.