The Military Wife Apr. 2010 | Page 9

Top Ten Signs Your PMQ Needs Spring Cleaning CPR:

1. There are ten toothbrushes in the holder and you only have four people living in your house.

2. The pile on your desk of current bills has one from the year 2005 on top. Oh wait, maybe that's why the television hasn't worked in awhile...

3. Your plastics cupboard explodes when opened. The lids and containers have morphed such that you can’t find one perfect match, and it's just been easier to shove everything back in and pour yourself another martini.

4. The dust on your dresser top is so thick, you mistake it for a piece of construction paper.

5. Floor space in your house has shrunk with the random boxes

from your last posting with bins, toys and various unmentionables scattered everywhere, so you can’t remember if your flooring

is the standard PMQ hardwood, standard PMQ ugly tile, or

old-school PMQ carpeting.

6. Your seasonings are so old, they have solidified into one

huge clump, and little tiny communities of "spice-monkeys"

have sprung up in the jars.

7. Books on your bookshelf have titles like "Baby Faces",

"Baby’s First Words", and "Bye Bye Baby", and

your youngest is about to start college.

8. Your living room floor is still home to several

Christmas bins, abandoned winter coats, and

an overflowing "socks box" with several

hundred socks, none of which have a mate.

9. After his most recent field exercise, he

is hesistant to dump his military kit on the

dining room floor in case it gets dirty from all

the muddy boot/paw prints the kids/pets

have tracked through.

10. Your Christmas lights are still up, your lawn is

more dog poo than lawn, and your car is the only

one on the block that isn't shiny and clean. Instead,

it looks like it survived a winter apocalypse.