A Shipboard Life, part 3…

Quality of Life

1. Invite 200 to 1000 of your ‘not so closest’ friends to come over. Board up all the windows and doors to your house for six months. After 6 months take down the boards. But, since you’re on duty, wave at your family through the front window of your home. You and one third of the ‘friends’ can’t leave until the next day.

2. Shower, eat, and sleep with the above mentioned friends never more than an arm’s length away. Instruct 10% of the ‘friends’ NOT to shower on a regular basis and an additional 10% NOT to change clothes more than once a month.

3. Cook all your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can reach. Fry everything and serve cold. Note: You must not gain weight on this diet while locked in the house for six months or you will be single out for the ‘fat boy’ program.

4. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month. Instruct them to lose every fifth item and to send every other week’s mail randomly to Japan or Italy.

5. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.

6. Every two weeks have your fifth grade son cut your hair with dull hedge clippers. Have him say each time, “It’s a new style. I’m practicing until it comes out right.”

7. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.

8. Work at McDonalds for four years. Do the same routine boring job day in and out. Do NOT get promoted.

9. Needle gun (compressed air powered impact device for paint chipping) the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.

10. Instruct your doctor to only dispense “aspirin” (APC – all purpose capsule) to you no matter what the ailment or complaint.

11. Gather all the neighborhood washing and mix the clothing in a pile. Rip off every other button, pour bleach directly on the pile, stuff the washing machine to maximum capacity, DO NOT separate by colors. Partially dry items and redistribute the “clean” items in a random fashion.

12. On the hottest, most humid day of the year, close all the doors and windows in your house, remove all fans for preventive maintenance and disassemble the air conditioner. On the coldest day of the year disable your heating system for maintenance. All family members must wear sweaters, heavy coats and gloves indoors to keep ice from forming on body parts. If going outdoors for any occasion everyone must appear uniform. If one person doesn’t have a coat and gloves, all must go without.

13. Stand in line for an hour to buy a candy bar and soda, only to find out the store is out of sodas and the candy bar is melted from heat.

14. Cut the ends out of two juice cans, place them over your ears to distort the sound while watching your TV.

15. Do your laundry using only the rinse cycle with paint thinner for detergent. Dry for 10 minutes and randomly redistribute.

16. Serve “Stuffed Cabbage Rolls” for dinner and the next evening strip off the cabbage leaves and serve the same thing, calling it “Beef Porcupines.”

17. Simulate being in drydock by leaving a 55 gallon drum of fish and crab parts under your bedroom window for three weeks. Have the kids needle gun (compressed air powered impact device for paint chipping) your exterior bedroom wall from 6 am to 6 pm and at random times throughout the night.

18. Have total strangers decide what 10 movies you can watch for the next month and show only these movies.

19. The day before the quarterly Physical Readiness Test (PRT) get Yellow Fever and Typhoid shots. Hold a safety stand down immediately following PRT on the importance of hygiene, physical conditioning, and proper diet and nutrition. After the safety stand down, hold a picnic featuring hot dogs and hamburgers (rollers and sliders) plus lots of greasy fries.

Comments

A Shipboard Life, part 3… — 13 Comments

  1. Made it all the way to part 3 w/o a single Shellback or Blue Nose comment?

  2. These are bringing back some fond memories, some nightmares, and relief that it’s over, all over again – even after 35 years

  3. Some of those are very similar to living if a Quonset Hut BOQ in a tropical location. Then add the monsoon, slithery reptile friends and flight ops in rain so heavy the APS shorted out.

  4. JR- THOSE are a whole separate story… or dozen 🙂

    Drjim- Jump in anyway 🙂

    Rev- You’re not the only one!

    Crucis- Since I was an airdale, I’m there with ya… Diego Garcia, Bandar, Cam Rahn Bay, Cubi and a few others!

  5. just caught up on your last three posts … remind me never to encourage anyone to join the navy!

  6. OK, I’ll try, but it’s nothing compared to the other things you’ve posted. My office space on the ship I work on is on the deck under the ship’s laundry. You can almost tell what day of the week it (laundry schedule) is by sounds coming through. It only gets *really* bad when one of the driers gets an unbalanced load, and then you’d swear the welds would start popping!

  7. Fuzzy- It was an ADVENTURE… In more ways than one…

    Julie- See above 🙂

    Drjim- Yeah, metal on metal banging “can” get a little intrusive!

  8. Oh, I laughed.

    I’ve never been aboard a Navy ship, but I can imagine that the list is from broad experience.

    As an old Army veteran, there are lots of parallels in every service.

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