Nobody Asked Me…

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.

In honor of the idjit I was sitting next to on the airplane today who though shipboard life was, “Like cool, man; I guess there isn’t much to do when you’re not fighting and stuff, right?” AARRGGGHHHH!!!! whereinhelldothesepeoplecomefrom??? And why in hell do I get stuck next to them???

Do-it-Yourself Kit

WHO CAN USE THIS KIT?
~Navy fans who watched the movie “TOP GUN” twice or any one episode of “JAG.”
~Former sea service personnel suffering from “brain fade syndrome.”
~Recruits with illusions of liberty among the natives in Bora Bora.
~Sailors and Marines reporting to their first sea duty.
~Naive youth who has talked to a friendly smiling recruiter in the past week.

EXPERIENCE REAL SHIPBOARD LIFE.~Follow these easy instructions with the aid of your family and friends to recreate the untold joys of life aboard ship.

~Kit easily adapts to Coast Guard Cutters with the addition of white paint and racing stripes.

~Break into a chorus of “Anchors Aweigh” or hum a few lines of “Semper Paratus” and enter the real world of life at sea.

Module 1 : Living Aboard Ship
1. Buy a dumpster, chip the paint off down to bare metal, paint it gray, and live in it for six months. {Coast Guard simulations use white paint.}

2. Run all the piping and the wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.

3. Repaint your entire house once a month.

4. Place metal barriers on the lower 18″ of every door in your house and add eight handles to every door..

5. Pump ten inches of nasty half sewage water into your basement. Pump it out, clean up the mess and paint everything in the basement gray. Repeat frequently for added realism.

6. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, on Tuesday and Thursday set the temperature at 10 degrees. On Saturday and Sunday inform your family that they used too much water during the week and as a result all showering is secured.

7. Stack all beds on top of one another in the closet. Raise your bed to within six inches of the ceiling. Stow all your clothing and possessions in a 36″ x 18″ x 12″ locker. If anyone is sick and throwing up put them in the top bunk.

8. Give the keys to your house to your next door neighbor. Instruct him enter your bedroom every morning at 0530 (5:30 am), and blow a whistle loud enough for Helen Keller to hear. Instruct the neighbor to shout in a amplified megaphone six inches from your ear, “Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up. The smoking lamp is lit in all authorized spaces.” “Now give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft and empty all sh*t cans over the fantail”!

Thanks Ev 🙂

9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she is going to do for the following day. With your family stand in the back yard at 0600 (6 am) while your mother-in-law reads her “Plan of the Day” (POD) to you. Repeat this everyday expect Sunday, unless you are simulating “at sea” in which case you may opt to do it seven days a week.

10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock the bathroom door for 12 hours. Hang a sign on the door that reads, “Secured – Contact OA Div at X-3053.”

11. When you leave your house make sure to take the phone off the hook so it will be busy all day.

12. Observe the ship board multi telephone line rule. One line is always reserved for the use of your father-in-law, one line reserved for your mother-in-law, and the third line is reserved for official business. If you want to make a personal call, walk two blocks to a convenience store and wait in line at the pay phone.

13. Install a bell on the front porch. Whenever your father-in-law comes over ring the bell 4 times and announce his arrival/departure over a megaphone.

14. Every time you leave or enter the house salute the porch light and ask your dog for permission to leave or enter the dwelling.

15. ( Aircraft Carrier Simulation) At random intervals from 1000 to 2200 (10 A.M. to 10 P.M.), have a biker gang with sledgehammers pound on your roof to simulate the launching and recovery of aircraft. At night, after the family has gone to sleep, have the bikers drag chains and heavy equipment across the roof to simulate the ‘re-spotting’ of the aircraft for the next morning’s flight schedule.

16. Install flashlights (battle lanterns) at the precise height at which to bang your head in the dark. Point the flashlight and important items (such as the sofa, all doorways, stove, etc). Occasionally turn the electric power off at the mains and run around the house turning on all the flashlights.

17. Use an air-raid siren for an alarm clock.

18. Remove all wrist watches from the family. Use the dinner bell as a systematic time indicator. Ring it madly when every body is their hungriest and announce the “Chow-line is not open for an hour.” Do not drool when you hear bells.

19. ( Aircraft Carrier Simulation) Have house mover relocate your home ten feet under Runway 19 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport for 6 months.

20. Divide bathroom shower with three partitions. Remove shower nozzle and replace with kitchen sink dish sprayer hooked to the cold water line only. The “extra” two showers now represent actual percentage of operable showers.

21. Remove bathroom sink, mirror, and all shelves. Replace with water fountain for shaving and hygiene use.

22. Do Laundry using only the rinse cycle with paint thinner for detergent. Dry for 10 minutes and randomly redistribute.

23. Have an electrician certify as ‘safe’ and hang a tag on every electrical appliance you own, no matter if the appliance is brand new or if its own manufacturer claims it is up to safety standards.

24. Buy a two year calendar. Carefully mark your EAOS (End of Active Obligated Service) day two years out, and number the days back to the present date for a long count down. Mark each day off for two years, dreaming of the “get out day.” Then march down to personnel and ship over (sign for additional service). [Radioman]

25. Place fire extinguishers on the bulkheads (walls) of your home at elbow level next to the door openings to conveniently rip your shirt.

26. Stand in your living room with all the lights turned out, except for one red light by which you read a small print book.

And for those old sailors out there, I have a couple of more to follow…