So… you wanted to know what it’s like being a sailor, living aboard a small floating city, and generally what it’s like being at sea for months at a time. Well, here are a few (oh yeah, there are plenty more) suggestions, just in case you really wanted to try it. Enjoy!
- Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium. Rotate at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time. Call it “Quarterdeck Watch”.
- When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair and sit in it. Rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket and a bucket so you can puke in it.
- Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget-priced coffee grounds per pot. Allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.
- Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears. Tell “the barber” to trim just a little off the sides.
- 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 because you failed inspection.
- Have you wife iron your skivvies, no starch!
- Get drunk and wind up in a tattoo parlor getting a pair of lips tattooed on your butt cheeks with the letters, “KMA.”
- Eat your meal in less than 5 minutes to keep in practice, chewing not required!
- Shout out every time a woman comes into your room, “Female in quarters”!
Andy Adkins is a US Navy veteran (’73-77) and the author of several books, including You Can’t Get Much Closer Than This-Combat with the 80th “Blue Ridge” Division in World War II Europe, published by Casemate Publishers (2005) and selected as the Book of the Month for the Military Book Club. His newest novel, NEVER FORGET, is the story of A Vietnam Veteran’s Journey for Redemption & Forgiveness; NEVER FORGET is offered as a FREE (PDF, eBook format) download. Adkins also writes a weekly blog, “A Veteran’s Journey.”