How To Simulate The Life Of A Sailor

[BULLO12]

~ Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.

~ Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.

~ Repaint your entire house every month.

~ Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the showerhead to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.

~ Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.

~ Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.

~ On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed.

~ Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

~ Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack."

~ Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.

~ Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle loudly, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up."

~ Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 am while she reads it to you.

~ Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 pm.

~ Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.

~ Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.

~ Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

~ Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

~ Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

~ Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.

~ Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (midrats)

~ Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.

~ Every week or so, throw your dog in the pool and shout, "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

~ Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready." After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.

~ Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

~ When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

~ Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

~ Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.

~ Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.

~ Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty." At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.

[Apis Bull]

Sounds about right.

[THe JAVI]

Here's a few more from my underway days:

-On the hottest, muggiest night, sit inside your car  with 8 other guys from 12pm-4am (re:  Balls-to-4 watch; aka midwatch), make sure that the windows are fully closed.  Every four hours, check the fluid level in your car's radiator; check the tire pressure and replace air lost from excessive pressure checks. Be sure to place red tag on ignition stating "DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE" while you perform these checks. Inform your neighbor as to the results of these checks, have him tell you to repeat the checks because he did not see you perform them.

-Let weavels get into your cereal.  Eat cereal with UHT milk for breakfast.

-Hoard a roll of toilet paper in case the UNREP unit does not get to you on time (ya'll know EXACTLY what I'm talking about).

-Do not flush the toilet for five days to simulate the smell of 40 people using the same commode.  Then close toilet and blow the CHT lines.  Ensure odor wafts throughout the house.

-Have a completely incompetent 19yr old cut your hair.

-Set your alarm to go off at ten-minute intervals for the first hour of sleep to simulate the various times the watchstanders and nightcrew bump around and wake you up. Place your bed on a rocking table so you are tossed around the remaining three hours. Make use of a custom clock that randomly simulates fire alarms, GQ sirens, helicopter crash alarms, and a post-punk rock band.

-Study the owner's manual for all household appliances. Routinely take an appliance apart and put it back together for no reason other than to keep busy.

-(For fomer O's like myself)  Try to imbue knowledge and reason to an uneducated, inbred, hillbilly.

-Mix kerosene with your water supply to simulate evaps on the ship picking up jp5 -- if a lit match thrown into your coffee pot doesn't ignite it, add more kerosene.

-Every 12 weeks, simulate a visit to another port. Go directly to the city slums wearing your best clothes. Find the worst looking place, and ask for the most expensive beer that they carry. Drink as many as you can in four hours.  F*** the nastiest crack whore that you can find for $50.  Hail a cab and have him taky you home via the longest possible route. Tip the cabby after he charges you double because you dress funny and don't speak right.

-Install a fluorescent lamp on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.