Posted on 05/16/2010 9:58:23 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
How to Simulate Being A Sailor
1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.
2. Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.
3. Repaint your entire house every month.
4. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.
5. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.
6. Once a week, blow air up your chimney, with a leaf blower and let the wind carry the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.
7. Once a month, take all major appliances apart and reassemble them.
8. 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.
9. Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.
10. 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, so no bathing will be allowed.
11. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.
12. 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."
13. Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc. Re-qualify every 6 months.
14. Have your neighbor come over each day at 0500, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up."
15. 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 0600 while she reads it to you.
16. Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 1500.
17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not. "Now sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all sh**cans and butt kits!")
18. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering the rest.
19. 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-- the same one every night.
20. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting "Now general quarters, general quarters! All hands man your battle stations!)
21. Make your family's menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.
22. 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.
23. Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.
24. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (Midrats)
25. Set your alarm clock to go off at random 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.
26. Every week or so, throw your cat or dog into the pool and shout "Man overboard, port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.
27. 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.
28. Make your family turn out all the lights and go to bed at 10 p.m. "Now taps, taps! Lights out! Maintain silence throughout the ship!" Then immediately have an 18-wheeler crash into your house. (For aircraft carrier sailors.)
29. Build a fire in a trash can in your garage. Loudly announce to your family, "This is a drill, this is a drill! Fire in hangar bay one!"
30. Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand in front of the podium for 4-hour intervals. Best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.
31. Next time there's a bad thunderstorm in your area, find the biggest horse you can, put a two-inch mattress on his back, strap yourself to it and turn him loose in a barn for six hours. Then get up and go to work.
32. For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room, and run it all day long.
33. Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and let the pot simmer for 5 hours before drinking.
34. Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.
35. Sew the back pockets of your jeans onto the front.
36. Add 1/3 cup of Diesel fuel to the laundry.
37. Take hourly readings on your electric and water meters.
38. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.
39. Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you'll 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.
This hi-larious! and oh so true. I’m going to have to share it with my fellow ex-sailors.
Dude, that was funnnnny! And I thought the Army was better because we had less uniforms to maintain.
Classic!
this is why I didn’t reenlist.
THANK YOU so very much for posting this gem!
I found it on USENET about 12 years ago, and haven’t been able to find it since then (because DejaNews was bought out, and then gutted, by Google Groups).
I know why I joined the Army.
The list is eerily accurate, and while I enjoyed my Naval service, I do not miss it.
My nephew just graduated his Class A school at Great Lakes. As an ex Navy man myself I can relate to all of these, but he don’t know yet. I’m sending it to him so he can “ponder” the future. LOL
ROTFLMAO, Two thirds of those “ideas” could apply to the Army also. Those “ideas” were made by E-9’s through O-6’s.
40. “Dump all trash over the fantail,” and then standby as the ship circles the trash and your skipper uses floating objects for 50 Caliber Machine Gun practice from the bridge.
Not a bad idea, except that nobody in the family wants to use most appliances. Maybe if they were fined for not maintaining qualification ...
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Off topic, but I thought everyone would get a kick out of this. Let me know if you have strong feelings either way about posting items like this.
Click on pic for past Navair pings.
Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
The only requirement for inclusion in the Navair Pinglist is an interest in Naval Aviation.
This is a medium to low volume pinglist.
In other words, Starbucks.
As a Marine who deployed aboard LPH’s and LHA’s I can relate. Although we didn’t have to play the paint chipping game. Life on the ship is pretty much the same for Sailors and Marines alike. The only difference is we Marines are only “guests” for 6 months, the ship is home for a Sailor.
LMAO!
Be promised that ever 18 months you will receive a $30K bonus for being a qualified nuclear engineer. At the 17th month, 29th day, you are told your role has changed to a piston cleaner. At the 18th month, first day, your role is changed back to nuclear engineer- no bonus.
We could make our own. like cooking C-Rations over C-4. LOL
LOL ...
Good to read for anybody, though ... just to give an idea ...
Been there, done that. 3 Westpacs and a couple of shorter cruises.
I can tell you there were huge differences being at sea as a Marine vs Sailor.
More rack space and lockers, MUCH better waterhours...and we ALWAYS went to the front of the chow line.
The poor jarheads spent their entire cruise in the friggin' chow line:)
But let me testify, those were great days, those days at sea.
Sounds like somebody just got back from deployment. Thank God we’ve got a Navy. AND, the Navy has a safety record in operation that all private industry is envious of. Of course, equaling it would require breaking down lawn mowers once a week and standing behind a podium for four hour intervals, and nobody’s going to do that.
One nite after air ops, Just as 2 ETs completed their Radar antenna repair and let out a whoop n holler, some sailor threw a bag of trash overboard. Well the fantail watch reported man overboard. I don’t know how many hours we circled in that fog, searchlights blazing, until every man was accounted for.
It is the reason my husband took his commission in the Marine Corps instead of the Navy,
As an Air Force puke I cannot relate to most of these items (except the general military silliness) but I do extend my thanks to those of you who endured (and continue to endure) it as well as the Army and the Marines.
I consider my service to have been an honor and I hold in highest respect those who also serve.
God bless them all!
there aint no simulating 50’ seas off Hokkaido. Washing footprints off the bulkheads afterwards was always a hoot!!
“The list is eerily accurate, and while I enjoyed my Naval service, I do not miss it.”
Agreed. I’m glad for the experience but wouldn’t want to do it again!
were you a navy nuke? I was.
No, all the recruiters tried to push that one, and this ended up being the running joke among all those who were nukes I talked to to see if what I wanted to do.
Curtains? Must have been in Officers country.
Yeah, that’s about right.
“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.” - Samuel Johnson
No, all the recruiters tried to push that one, and this ended up being the running joke among all those who were nukes I talked to to see if what I wanted to do.
Please, could you tell me why the recruiters wanted to use this as a recruiting enticement? Was it a common tactic? Any specific audience? Thanks.
(bear in mind, this was during the Clintoon era (circa 93) but what they were using as a carrot was the reenlistment bonuses. I had several friends who had already signed up who were complaining about these carrots suddenly disappearing.
Navy Nuke?
ha, ha
I was navy nuke WASTE.
I washed out about 3/4 of the way at NNPS in Orlando in 1984.
I went to the fleet as an A-Ganger and I got my A/C&R nec while on a tin can out of San Diego.
I did too...the first hitch. After 4 years+ as a civilian,I succumbed and gave them 26 years total.
This list is pretty good,but somewhat dated...I mean,how many present day active duty sailors could even find a butt kit today??
40) replace half the lights in your house with red bulbs and wire these lights to work when the white lights are turned off, turn the white light off at sunset and on at sunrise. Put curtains on the front and back doors.
I believe it was because the attrition rate was so high. I believe there was an 80 percent drop out rate.
oops...thought it said stimulate :-) Wish my Dad was still around to share this with him. He was retired Navy. He would have loved this.
Here you go sand crab.
Thanks for reminding me why I chose to go Air Force (which has its own share of silliness...)
Been there, done that.
There’s one thing I remember that I can’t seem to find a way to duplicate. Sleeping in a berthing between the bow catapaults on the JFK. 150 MPH freight train coming thru your rack every 45 seconds.
We were one deck below the cats, and just aft of the fo’c’sle. I got used to the catapaults, but the anchor dropping that one time when i was asleep scared the hell out of me.
3 1/2 years there, 3 1/4 years near the arresting gear on the Nimitz, and 3 years with a berthing (thankfully) on the third deck on the Ike. But the idiots from fuels would come every night around 0200 to sound tanks, and wake everybody up.
I thought I had it bad, I had a rack on the Midway about 15 feet to starboard of centerline under the #3 wire. I was working night shift at the time. Everytime they landed a Phantom it sounded like they were crashing 20+ tons of airplane right over my head.
Oh, yeah, they were!
My son, (an old navy man) said they have marines on ships cause no one trusts a sailor with a gun...(Unless its anchored to the ship...)
Served aboard a War II Essex (USS Intrepid CVA-11) of Yankee Station in '68, so racks were really racks; aluminum tube w/grommented canvas & cotton rope. Foot-and-a-half under flight deck armor, not even any pipes to muffle the sound!
Only A/C space available to us was the Library; Chaplain's writer walked around with sawed-off broomstick to whack shoes if you dropped off while "Reading"; next shot up side of head if heavy sleeper...
When we got back to The World at Norfolk, buddy showed me around the America; A/C in berthing! Shiny-clean decks, racks with extra storage under, stacked 3-high so you could almost sit up in them... I mean, talk about the OLD navy!
Turned out had an Uncle who served aboard Intrepid as 40mm gunner in '44, when things were REALLY tough!
Need more coffee... (Colombian!) getting that shakey feeling agian...
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