the chaos that controlled my mind

I was volunteered to be a part of the unit holiday party committee. If I believed in Hell, Hell would be the holiday party committee.

Today's committee meeting was TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG, and we accomplished NOTHING. We decided which room the coat rack will be kept in.

Also during this meeting:

- A MSG in the unit offered to donate $100 to use for gift cards for the 10 older children. After 15 minutes of unnecessarily heated debate whether 10 gift cards would be enough (what if more kids show up?) or if younger kids would rather have gift cards instead of stuffed animals (a valid question) or if older kids would feel left out as their gift bags would be less full (are you kidding me people?), she threw up her hands and said, "That's it, I'm all DONE. I will NOT be donating anything." That's the holiday spirit.

- No one wants to be responsible for supervising the moon bounce. ("Will I be relieved? Because I don't want to stand there all night.")

- Fake poinsettias vs real poinsettias. A more important consideration than this year's election. Your thoughts?

- The HHB commander suggested the following: we buy Santa Hats for all the children, that we buy food for double the people who RSVP'd ("just in case"), that we requisition a giant sign announcing the party to attach to the fence outside the facility (don't know where he expects to get this thing when we're only a week out and this weekend is Thanksgiving), that we put the coat rack in the game room, that we wrap Santa's HMMWV with gold garland (in addition to the lights already affixed to it).

- Someone else declared that the commander wanted garland on the HMMWV because he's "so Puerto Rican," resulting in a collective gasp/awkward silence.

- Should all the volunteers wear Santa hats (since the kid idea got shot down)?

- Who should give out the presents? Santa? (But Santa won't be there that long.) The brigade commander? (The commander's wife gently suggested that wasn't a great idea.) HHB commander? ("But I thought I was helping out with games?") Would it be impersonal to just leave them on a table for kids to take on their way out? (Yes. And the kids would probably steal some.)

- Where is the coat rack going again?

And so on. For two and a half hours. This is why I left Iraq? Fucking send me back. I'm not even joking.

"pretending to feel the same,

then turn around and leave again"

- Maroon 5 "This Love" -