Subject: How to simulate shipboard life. Suggestions for the
ex-sailor who misses the “good old days” (geared to the “surface
squid”)… Some of these also apply to submariners..
1.Sleep on the shelf in your closet.
2.Replace the closet door with a curtain.
3.Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife whip open the
curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble “Sorry,
wrong rack”.
4.Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of
your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level.
5.When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while
soaping.
6.Every time there’s a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking
chair and rock as hard as you can until you’re nauseous.
7.Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to
“High”.
8.Don’t watch TV except movies in the middle of the night.
Also, have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a
different one.
9.(Mandatory for ex-engineering types) Leave lawnmower running
in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.
10.Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
11.Once a week blow compressed air up through your chimney,
making sure the wind carries the soot across and onto your
neighbor’s house. Laugh at him when he curses you.
12.Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up
garbage in the other side of your bathtub.
13.Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich on stale bread, if anything. (Optional: Canned
ravioli or cold soup).
14.Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking
in your food cabinets or refrigerator.
15.Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the
night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as
you can, then run out into your yard and break out the garden hose.
16.Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and
then put them back together.
17.Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or
6 hours before drinking.
18.Invite at least 85 people you don’t really like to come and
visit for a couple of months.
19.Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your
coffee table and lie under it to read books.
20.Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills on your front
and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit
your head on the sill every time you pass through one of them.
21.Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.
22.When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is
baking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off
the top.
23.Every so often, throw your cat into the swimming pool, shout
“Man overboard, ship recovery!”, run into the kitchen and sweep
all the pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor, then
yell at your wife for not having the place “stowed for sea”.
24.Put on the headphones from your stereo (don’t plug them in).
Go and stand in front of your stove. Say (to nobody in
particular) “Stove manned and ready”. Stand there for 3 or 4
hours. Say (once again to nobody in particular) “Stove secured”.
Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.
