[Part 3 of our continuing story. You can catch up with part 1 or part 2.]

 It was Saturday night…after 11pm…

when suddenly a very loud, very pronounced “THUD!” echoed upstairs to the bedroom.

 It even caught Maggie by surprise.

She jumped off the bed to race downstairs while I fumbled around looking for something to use as a weapon.

Because there was no lilting sound of “Hellooooo Sexy Wife” coming from downstairs.

 (Eric’s usual “Honey-I’m home” greeting.)

Instead what I heard was grunts & groans…aches & moans…and the sounds of lumbering (and now sufficiently broken-in) new combat boots* coming up the stairs.

[*Read what happened to the last pair of combat boots.]

He managed to stumble his way to all of 3 feet in front of me before collapsing on top of me.

(Fear not – this sort of thing has happened before. And luckily, I’ve mastered the kung-fu art of ‘wife-with-big-tall-husband’ to get him off of me & on to the bed…I’m a black belt.)

The boy was soaked to the bone in rain & sweat. August in Korea is “Changma Season”…rainy, humid, sticky-muggy, sweat like a pig season. And over the course of the last 48 hours, the boy had managed to go through 3 uniforms already.

So as I began to un-lace, un-velcro & un-button the ACU’s off of him, Maggie -  completely intoxicated by the level of stinkiness – kept getting in the way.

She wanted those stinky socks & she wanted them now!

Oh yeah…ACU’s – Army Combat Uniforms: You know, those lovely little green numbers all the fashionable soldiers are wearing these days.

Ok, he’ll kill me for that one. How about this?…

ACU’s – Army Combat Uniforms: Manly, macho, daytime stealth-wear for the active on- the-go GI Joe soldier. Room for your leatherman, boot knife & extra hand grenade. Comes in camo green, camo khaki & camo tan – in that order. Combat patch under the American flag not included - sorry, must be earned.

I managed to pull off the tightly-laced boots & rip off one of the near-permanently sweat-stuck socks to throw at Maggie. But unfortunately, the overall smell was so overwhelming it just kept sucking her back in the way.

Once she had both socks & his shirt she was content to leave us alone and was high as a kite.

(Seriously, I’ll have to film that for you one day – I swear it’s a drug to her. You’d think it was LSD the way she dances & prances…throwing the socks & shirt in the air, only to catch them before they hit the ground.)

He was exhausted…he was sun-burned…and wasn’t going to budge another inch for the next 18 hours.

[Read the end of the story in part 4.]