Quarters, Melting Lightbulbs and no Beauty Sleep

Before I got married, I had a full-time job. Okay a few. Consecutively. Although even further back in history, I did have several part-time jobs concurrently. But that is beside the point. When I married my husband, I married the Army and that meant frequent relocations to exotic parts of the world, like Kansas. Frequent moves require frequent job changes and so my career in the criminal justice world came to a screeching halt. Government positions require a lengthy application process and sometimes the delays can reach up to 6 months and that's being selected the first time out. So, our first duty assignment in Kansas, was to last a mere 12 months. Certainly not long enough to even attempt to land a government position. It sure would have been nice though. Leavenworth, Kansas is like Mecca to folks who make a living in punishment and corrections. Prisons as far as the eye can see. Federal, state, private, juvenile, female, work camps....it's all there.

Alas, it was just not to be. I ended up becoming a substitute teacher. It wasn't so bad. I even got to the point where I enjoyed being called to work. I mostly worked in the town of Easton. It's a small rural community where everyone knows everyone. It didn't take long to learn all the children in the area from kindergarten all the way through the Senior class. Had our assignment been longer than 12 months, I might have even considered switching gears from corrections to education.

Those 12 months zipped by and we received orders to head across the pond to Germany. My husband's initial job in a three year tour was 1 year in Heidelberg. Civilian jobs are difficult to come by in a military community and overseas compounds the problem. Local nationals fill a significant portion of available positions. I could easily have obtained employment with AAFES (the military's department store) or the commissary. Neither one of those places appealed to me. I've done my fair share of retail and besides, I wanted to have free time for traveling and shopping. So, back to being a substitute. The system required a separation application per school. As the high school was across the street from where we lived, I opted to only work there.

Those 12 months didn't zip by as fast as the previous 12 months. The whole deployment to Iraq and being left behind with two teenagers made every day feel like an eternity. But, time passed and we moved to Schweinfurt. We were to be there for the remaining 2 years of our tour. The schools in that area require a substitute work in only one school. So, the elementary school being a brisk 7 minute walk away, I chose to work there. Plus, I took a second job, also part-time, filling in at the Provost Marshal's Office generating installation passes to local nationals, visiting family members and soldiers. The pay schedule is the same for both positions and between the two, I can work frequently. I am the Super Substitute.

As of late, I am working full-time filling in with the installation pass position. One of the employees took extended leave. That means a great paycheck for me. It also means the end of my leisure time for a few weeks.

Back in the day when I was a career woman, I went to bed early. I do not function well on less than 8 full hours of sleep. I prefer 9. As a result of my sleeping patterns, I rarely was awake after 9:00 p.m. Now that I am a mom of two teenagers, getting to bed before 10:00 p.m. is no longer an option. It's a good thing they are old enough to take on some of the household responsibilities while I'm working. It's nice to come home and find that the trash has been taken out and the carpets have been vacuumed and the poop in the yard has been picked up. That means I only have a million things to do instead of the million and three. It does take off some of the pressure.

I woke up this morning extremely tired. I hit the snooze button 3 times and still had to fight to pull back the covers and force myself out of the bed. I just needed two more hours of sleepy-time. Even my dogs didn't want to get up. When I did finally drag my half-comatose, sleep-deprived body out of the warm, snuggly bed, I said to myself, "I don't know how single-parents do it." Holding down a full-time job, taking care of the household and all the responsibilities that come with it, plus rearing children. Phew! It's exhausting work.

Luckily, the physical maintenance of my home is aided by the military. We live in government quarters. That means when the washing machine breaks, I call in a work order and a fix-it man comes out. If the foundation leaks when it rains, I call in a work order and a fix-it man comes out. If the trees get too overgrown, I call in a work order and a fix-it man comes out. Same with clogged rain gutters, running toilets, malfunctioning stove/oven, and leaky faucet. There are perks to living in quarters.

I had planned on getting to bed early last night, by 9 p.m. at the latest. I had bathed and was in my pajamas relaxing watching tv when the electrical malfunction happened. At 8:45 p.m., a movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned to see what it was just in time to see a lightbulb hit the floor. Simultaneously, the other bulbs in the fixture went out. Hmmm. That's not something you see everyday. My investigation revealed a melted lightbulb. The metal screw part of the bulb was still securely fastened in the socket. The bulb itself had melted off.

As all the other bulbs (six total) went out, I figured the fuse blew. I checked the circuit breaker and discovered no flipped switches. Hmmmm. The light switch on the wall showed the overhead light to be in the on position and the circuit breaker showed that there was power to the light switch, but there was no light. Hmmmm. I start to think fire hazard. So, at 9:00 p.m. when I should have been crawling into bed, I was on the phone calling in a work order.

The housing office was closed, naturally, and the phone was answered by the fire department. After hours calls are forwarded to them. I explained my situation. The emergency service technician agreed this was a potential hazard and it could not wait until the next day to be called in for a 24 hour wait.

By 9:15 p.m. I had an electrician in my dining room dismantling my light fixture. He, too, was concerned that the circuit breaker had not triggered. After 20 minutes and two searches for a dropped screw, a tiny screw, the problem was solved. German light switches have a fuse inside the switch. That fuse blew. A simple replacement of the fuse and all was better. As for the melting bulb. Apparently, that's fairly common. The electrician was not at all concerned about that and told me that does happen. In all of my life, I've never known a lightbulb to melt out of the socket, but I could be wrong.

So, off to bed by 10:00 p.m. and of course, I'm too wound up to sleep. It took another 45 minutes before my eyelids couldn't take it anymore. No beauty sleep for me. And now, I'm just too pooped to pop.

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