Radio Amateur W4KWH

Not sure who authored this originally, but it’s truly a classic.

Some Ways to Simulate Being in the Navy

1. Lock all friends and family outside. Your only means of communication should be with letters that your neighbors have held for at least three weeks, discarding two of five.
2. Surround yourself with 200 people that you don’t really know or like: people who smoke, snore like Mack trucks going uphill, and use foul language like a child uses sugar on cereal.
3. Unplug all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the outside world. Have a neighbor bring you a Time, Newsweek, or Proceedings from five years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
4. Monitor all home appliances hourly, recording all vital information (ex. plugged in, lights come on when doors open, etc)
5. Do not flush the toilet for five days to simulate the smell of 40 people using the same commode.
6. Lock the bathroom twice a day for a four hour period.
7. Wear only military uniforms. Even though nobody cares, clean and press one dress uniform and wear it for 20 minutes.
8. Cut your hair weekly, making it shorter each time, until you look bald or look like you lost a fight with a demented sheep.
9. Work in 19-hour cycles, sleeping only four hours at a time, to ensure that your body does not know or even care if it is day or night.
10. Listen to your favorite CD 6 times a day for two weeks, then play music that causes acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your favorite CD.
11. Cut a twin mattress in half and enclose three sides of your bed. Add a roof that prevents you from sitting up (about 10 inches is a good distance) then place it on a platform that is four feet off the floor. Place a small dead animal under the bed to simulate the smell of your rackmate’s socks.
12. Set your alarm to go off at 10 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 to ensure you are tossed around the remaining three hours. Make use of a custom clock that randomly simulates fire alarms, police sirens, helicopter crash alarms, and a new-wave rock band.
13. Have week old fruit and vegetables delivered to your garage and wait two weeks before eating them.
14. Prepare all meals blindfolded using all the spices you can grope for, or none at all. Remove the blindfold and eat everything in three minutes.
15. Periodically, shut off all power at the main circuit breaker and run around shouting “fire, fire, fire” and then restore power.
16. At least once a month, force the commode to overflow to simulate a ‘black water system’ boo-boo.
17. Buy a gas mask and smear it with rancid animal fat. Scrub the faceshield with steel wool until you can no longer see out of it. Wear this for two hours every fifth day especially when you are in the bathroom.
18. Study the owner’s manual for all household appliances. Routinely take an appliance apart and put it back together.
19. Remove all plants, pictures and decorations. Paint everything gray, white, or the shade of hospital smocks.
20. Buy 50 cases of toilet paper and lock up all but two rolls. Ensure one of these two rolls is wet all the time.
21. Smash your forehead or shins with a hammer every two days to simulate collision injuries sustained onboard Navy ships.
22. When making sandwiches, leave the bread out for six days, or until it is hard and stale.
23. Every 10 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. Take a cab home taking the longest possible route. Tip the cabby after he charges you double because you dress funny and don’t speak right.
24. Use fresh milk for only two days after each port visit.
25. Keep the bedroom thermostat at 2 deg C and use only a thin blanket for warmth.
26. Ensure that the water heater is connected to a device that provides water at a flow rate that varies from a fast drip to a weak trickle, with the temperature alternating rapidly from -2 to 95 deg C.
27. Use only spoons which hold a minimum of 1/2 cup at a time.
28. Repaint the interior of your home every month, whether it needs it or not.
29. Remind yourself every day: ‘it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure!’
30. Mix kerosene with your water supply to simulate the distilling plant on the ship picking up JP5 in the intake — if a lit match thrown into your coffee pot doesn’t ignite it, add more kerosene.
31. Stand outside at attention at dawn and have the poorest reader you know read the morning paper out loud. Be sure to have him skip over anything pertinent.
32. 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.
33. Paint your house grey (exterior) include windows except for rooms you do not frequent, paint your car grey, paint your driveway a different shade of grey.
34. Wait outside your dining area as a family member eats a meal, then have that person serve you a meal prepared several hours earlier.
35. Shut all blinds and doors at sunset.
36. Clean your house ’till there’s absolutely not a speck of dust anywhere. Call on a stranger to come inspect your house. Ensure stranger sees dust that has collected in the time it took to find him. Stranger cannot leave until he finds irrational fault with your house/belongings.
37. Hang Christmas lights in June. When the neighbors ask, say, “deceptive lighting.”
38. Hang white lights when relatives visit. When neighbors ask, say, “friendship lights.”