Making Jokes While Packing Medical Supplies for Ukraine

 

Four days last week, I was working in a warehouse in New Jersey, part of a team of #RazomforUkraine volunteers assembling Individual First Aid Kits (IFAKs). In total we packed more than 8,000 IFAKs last week for shipment to Ukraine during the week. We work hard filling the small packs with medical supplies, but we also have fun while we work.

On Wednesday last week, I was refilling boxes with a dozen different kinds of medical supplies while ten people assembled IFAKs.  A new volunteer noticed me grabbing boxes of supplies from different places and said, "Do you have x-ray vision or something?  How do you know what is in all these boxes?"  

I laughed and said I was there enough to know where everything is.  Which led to a the question, "What superpower would you want?  Pick one."

We then got into a discussion of the social downside of having super powers: other people get envious; you lose friends; your family starts to wonder why you are so special....

On Friday at the end of the day we were setting up three lines for assembling IFAKs.  As we lined up the supplies and boxes on the pallets, we started talking about the lines competing about who is fastest.  I was telling one of the guys that if this were the Army, the lines would definitely compete with each other and start insulting each other--saying their line was the best.  We started making up things the lines would say to each other.

On Saturday, one of the volunteers who I have worked with for weeks saw me opening boxes of cloth tape and asked if I was qualified for that job.  I told him that in the 1970s when the Army first got Photocopiers, I had to attend a three-hour class to be a qualified photocopier operator.  Once I had done that, I was definitely qualified to open rolls of tape.

Each day I volunteer, I leave the warehouse tired and happy to be part of doing to help Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invaders.  And most days, I am smiling about how much fun it is to be part of a team with a mission doing good.