Sew what? I knit!

I had a flooding of memories of basic training flowing through my brain just moments ago. As you know, I was promoted recently. Normally as a little NCO I'd just swap out rank on the sleeves and hope people wouldn't notice the previous needle tracks (it's a little like a drug problem).

Well, since I'm now in that upper tier I thought I should order real uniforms from supply and have items professionally sewn on. It's not that I can't sew but I don't like it, so if I can avoid it, I do.

I picked up my new shirts today and everything was sewn on - yay! - everything except our unit patch. Shit. I had enough crap today from everyone telling me I was out of uniform and then when I put on the new shirt, sans unit patch, I still got crap. This led to me attempting to sew again.

Like I said, this isn't normally a problem. I can sew. I learned from both my mother and Mrs. Wiese - the ultimate Becky Home-Ec-y. But my problem lies in the minor fact that I don't have thread, only yarn. Yarn is durable but doesn't fit through that tiny little eye very well, nor does it last when you have to pull it apart to a single thread so it will fit through the tiny little eye.

Sew (haha!) I sort of tacked on one of my unit patches and then put double sided tape on the other side and ironed the hell out of it. PRAY that it stays at least a day or two. I talked with my mother - the other ultimate Becky Home-Ec-y who actually owns thread - and she's going to sew my other shirt and then we'll swap and she'll fix the ironed/taped one. Crossing fingers.

But the basic training memories flooded my senses as my nose was overloaded with the smell of "new shirt being ironed". Trust me, this has a smell and a memory, and neither are good. And I did wash the shirt, but the stench is still there. Hours of ironing, starching, tweaking, aligning flooded through my pores and I just wanted to scream. Thank goodness I've gotten pretty good at ironing a shirt so I didn't have to deal with it for very long.

• I have a vivid picture of Cynthia starching, ironing, and restarching and ironing an already starched and ironed uniform that she had just brought back from dry cleaning.
• I can see me and Speirs (or was it Spears) sitting on our cots on a rare down Saturday, t-shirts between binders, and tweezers at hand tweaking each piece of shirt so that it was all completely even across - then ironing it down again only to find one bit was just slightly off.
• I hear Tim coming up to me and asking me academic questions while we stood in line waiting for our flight's turn at chow and me being a smartass during it, for one because he was ever so dreamy and I had a huge crush on him, and for two because I just wanted to see if he would ever crack - I got him once...once. :)
  
• I remember standing door guard in the middle of the night, memorizing my lyrics for my upcoming recital (once I returned home), doing the tongue exercises in front of the mirror Dr. James insisted I continue since I wouldn't be singing on a daily basis, and getting caught by girls getting up in the middle of the night. "What the hell you doing, girl?" nevermind...
• I see SrA Cribb staring me down - he was my height - trying to intimidate me and all I could think was, "Dude, I'll be home in a month - give it a rest." And SrA Dunston - OMG - this man was hilarious...to imitate. Tim has him down to a T. "Nuh uh. Nuh uh." That was Dunston's key phrase.
  

So many memories...that was 11 years ago...and they are all so fresh and are alerted by the simple act of ironing a new shirt.