Monday, June 23, 2008

Things to do at home to simulate shipboard life

This was probably the most popular page on the original FTN site. I think that's why it's fitting to make it the first post on my new blog. The text is straight from the archives; I'll start linking some of the terms so the non-navy folks can better understand some of the lingo.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be in the Navy, but you just don't feel like enlisting? I've got you covered! Here are a few things you can do in your own home to simulate what its like on the ship!

  • Run all of the piping and wires in your house on the OUTSIDE of the walls
  • Pump 10 inches of oily water into your basement then...
  • Pump it out, clean it up, and paint it red
  • Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes. Wear them around the house for about 20 minutes, then change again.
  • Pay triple the cost of a crappy imported beer at your favorite bar and get totally smashed. Find a cab and tell him to take the longest way possible back to your house. Tip him $50
  • Perform an annual disassemble and inspect on your lawn mower
  • Jack your water heater up to about 275 degrees
  • Raise your bed to within about 7 inches of your ceiling. Place a small dead animal under the bed to simulate the smell of your bunkmate
  • Use a police siren as your alarm clock. The optimum choice is one that randomly plays police whistles, fire alarms, and/or bomb explosions when it goes off
  • Have your mother-in-law make you stand in the back yard at 6 a.m. and read you the paper
  • Eat chili and spicy mexican food for three days straight then lock up the bathroom (for cleaning) for a 12 hour period
  • Submit a form formally asking permission from your father-in-law to take your wife out for dinner
  • Board up all of your doors and windows then invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come live with you. Good choices are those that fart, belch, snore, smell bad, and have personal hygiene problems. An added bonus are ones that can say F%^K more times in one sentence than a stuttering whore.
  • Share a shower stall with the above mentioned friends
  • Make your family qualify to operate all of the appliances in your house (ex. "Dishwasher Operator" and "Dryer Tech")
  • Walk around your car for 6 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes
  • Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere
  • Empty all of the garbage cans in your house 4 times a day (empty or not, the can still needs a new bag)
  • Paint (inside and out) your entire house every 2 months
  • Cook all of your food in the dark, blindly groping for any spice or seasoning you can get your hands on. Eat everything in 3 minutes.
  • Periodically shut off all power at the main circuit breaker to your house and run around shouting "Fire! fire! fire!" and then restore power.
  • Have your neighbor collect all of your mail, hold it for at LEAST 3 weeks, randomly losing every fifth piece
  • Spend $40 MILLION on satellite TV, but only use two channels
  • Have your 6 year old epileptic cousin give you a hair cut with goat shears
  • Sew back pockets to the front of your pants
  • Use eau de ass-funk as your new cologne/air freshener
  • Wait until you have an intestinal infection, then lock up the bathroom for two weeks
  • Spend two weeks in the red-light districts of every major city in the orient without your family and call it "world travel"
  • Unplug all all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the outside world. Have a neighbor bring you tapes of sporting events that happened a year ago. Also have them bring copies of Time, Newsweek, or Proceedings from two years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
  • Listen to your favorite CD 6 times a day for several weeks, then play music that causes acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your favorite CD.
  • Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house as soon as everyone in your neighborhood goes to bed.
  • When your family is in bed, turn up the TV and shout at the top of your lungs into a megaphone.
  • Call the EPA when your mother-in-law spills casserole on your kitchen floor
  • Turn off all the lights in your house then rock back and forth, to and fro until you throw up. then stop
  • Refer to all women as "chicks"
  • Watch nature shows that portray animal mating habits and scream things like "take it up the ass!" and "go for it" as loud as you can at the TV.
  • Stand at the end of your driveway in sub-zero temperatures just in case someone comes over to visit. This is to ensure that only "authorized" visitors come to your house.
  • Every time you want a midnight snack, get some stale crackers and warm, watery kool-aid
  • Vent your septic tank into your bathroom
  • Replace all the jets in your carburetor using a 3 lb. ball peen hammer and an 18" pipe wrench
  • Eat all of your meals with a serving ladle and a dirty fork
  • Buy only powdered eggs and try to cook them over easy and sunny side up
  • Knock over a cup of coffee on the floor at about 3:00 am and make your family rope off the kitchen while you tape garbage bags over your body to clean up the spill
  • Open all of your boxes of cereal and store for 3 months before using
  • Throw away your phone and buy a $2000 ham radio, then allow no one to use it because you must maintain radio silence
  • Wash all of your sheets at once so you have to sleep on a bare bed while they hang out to dry
  • Buy a gas mask and smear it with rancid animal fat. Scrub the face shield with steel wool until you can no longer see out of it. Wear this for two hours once a week while you pretend to look for fires in your basement.
  • Occasionally run your blender at the extremes of it's tolerances for cyclic maintenance. Aftwards, disassemble it and replace all moving parts.
  • Check the fluid level in your car's radiator. Check the tire pressure and replace air lost from excessive pressure checks. Be sure to hang a red tag on the ignition stating "DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE" while you perform these checks. Inform your neighbor as to the results of these checks. Make sure you have him repeat back everything you say VERBATIM.
    • Example:
    • You: "Tire Pressure...35 pounds"
    • Neighbor: "The pressure in your..."
    • You: "WRONG!!!, I said 'Tire Pressure...35 pounds. Try again!"

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