When you are a Trailer Wife ('cause that's just funnier than calling it a Trailing Spouse), you'd better get some thick skin asap. You see, for the Employed Spouse (in my case the Physician Spouse) it's the same old shit, different place. They really have no idea where they live. Typically they drive about 3 routes: to/from work, to/from Starbucks, to/from Home Depot.
Honestly, Dr. Arm could have done residency in Oregon or Louisiana and not known the difference. Rarely could he recite his home address without at least a 5 second delay. Of course, we had the opportunity to move 5 times during the entire internship, residency, fellowship, and fellowship journey.
Most hospitals and departments are the same inside. Same lighting, same push button doors, same vending machines, same scrubs, same parking deck. And at every one of them you'll find a similar cast of characters: the Super Ego Attending, the Newer Physician Who Cares, the Unreachable Jackass Attending, the Sweet Department Secretary Who Thinks Knows They Are All Just Adolescents, the Bitchy Nurse, the Loudmouth Unit Secretary, the Old Lady At the Info Desk, the Glazed Over Parking Deck Attendant, the Nice But Could Save Your Life Security Guard, and the Questionably Alcoholic Chairman's Wife. It's practically Plug and Play for the Physician Spouse.
But for the Trailer Wife....she has to navigate the new grocery store, the new dentist, the new veterinarian, the new hair salon, the new babysitters, the new drivers license office, the new car mechanic, the new neighbors, and the new schools. It is she who gets stared at when she speaks out loud with her Southern accent in the middle of Philadelphia. She who has to ask a million times exactly how the commuter train routing system works and receive the annoyed and perhaps unintelligible answer from the SEPTA employee. She who has to bargain her way into a job that may or may not last more than a year. And if she's reeeeeeaaaaallllyyyy lucky, she'll get to pack it up again and again for 3 years in a row. Oh yea, and have a couple of kids in there too.
So for anyone reading in the mortgage industry, think about changing that name. The Trailing Spouse doesn't provide an accurate description. It implies a passive, following person who is just along for the ride.
And so perhaps Trailer Wife is a better name? At least that may imply an "Annie get your gun" kind of woman who could pick up and move at any time.
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