Now that I'm back at sea and loving it, here are a few simple steps to simulating shipboard life. They're old, but oh, so true...
1. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. 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".
2. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while soaping. Plug the drain for a week, every other week.
3. Every time there's a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you're nauseous.
4. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to "High".
5. Don't watch TV except movies in the middle of the night. Also, have your family vote on which movie, then show a different one.
6. Leave lawnmower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level.
7. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
8. 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.
9. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub. Burn it all, every two weeks. Just under your open, dining room window. While you eat.
10. 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).
11. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator.
12. 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.
13. Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together. When anything you own breaks, fix it yourself or don't use it ever again.
14. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or 6 hours before drinking.
15. Invite at least 45 people you don't really like to come and visit for a couple of months.
16. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.
17. 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.
18. Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.
19. When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is cooking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off the top.
20. 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".
21. 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.
22. Wake up at 0-Dark-30, line up in the driveway in a light drizzle, and have your mother-in-law criticize your clothes and read you the newspaper.
23. Next time you need dentistry done, have your auto mechanic perform it while you sit in a rocking chair, rocking as fast as you can.
24. Lay out a 25 meter circle in your backyard. Fence it in. Climb in and run laps every time you want some exercise.
25. Buy a new washer and dryer. From Norway. Install and use them without reading any directions. If you know how to read Norwegian, buy them in Indonesia.
26. Throw out all your clothes, toiletries and personal effects except for what you can fit in one, small duffel bag that weighs less than 30 pounds. Then loose it for 2 weeks. Wash the clothes on your back every 4 days while standing in a towel at the local laundry mat. Borrow a friend's toothbrush and deodorant every other day for that "fresh and clean" feeling.
27. Make no more than 20 minutes of phone calls per week. Pull the phone cord out of the plug in the middle of every third call. Do the same with your Internet connection every 4-5 minutes.
28. Every time someone you know gets a cold, or the flu, go live with them.
29. Do not sleep on the weekends, alternate between standing in the middle of a room staring at advertisements, sitting in a folding chair facing the wall and running from one end of your street to the other as fast as you possibly can with a fully-packed piece of carry-on luggage. Consume only fast food and alcohol. Then, go to work on Monday and work 15 hours non-stop.
30. Go to work and live there for one or two months. Never venture more than 150 feet from your desk.
1. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. 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".
2. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while soaping. Plug the drain for a week, every other week.
3. Every time there's a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you're nauseous.
4. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to "High".
5. Don't watch TV except movies in the middle of the night. Also, have your family vote on which movie, then show a different one.
6. Leave lawnmower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level.
7. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
8. 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.
9. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub. Burn it all, every two weeks. Just under your open, dining room window. While you eat.
10. 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).
11. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator.
12. 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.
13. Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together. When anything you own breaks, fix it yourself or don't use it ever again.
14. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 or 6 hours before drinking.
15. Invite at least 45 people you don't really like to come and visit for a couple of months.
16. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.
17. 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.
18. Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.
19. When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is cooking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off the top.
20. 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".
21. 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.
22. Wake up at 0-Dark-30, line up in the driveway in a light drizzle, and have your mother-in-law criticize your clothes and read you the newspaper.
23. Next time you need dentistry done, have your auto mechanic perform it while you sit in a rocking chair, rocking as fast as you can.
24. Lay out a 25 meter circle in your backyard. Fence it in. Climb in and run laps every time you want some exercise.
25. Buy a new washer and dryer. From Norway. Install and use them without reading any directions. If you know how to read Norwegian, buy them in Indonesia.
26. Throw out all your clothes, toiletries and personal effects except for what you can fit in one, small duffel bag that weighs less than 30 pounds. Then loose it for 2 weeks. Wash the clothes on your back every 4 days while standing in a towel at the local laundry mat. Borrow a friend's toothbrush and deodorant every other day for that "fresh and clean" feeling.
27. Make no more than 20 minutes of phone calls per week. Pull the phone cord out of the plug in the middle of every third call. Do the same with your Internet connection every 4-5 minutes.
28. Every time someone you know gets a cold, or the flu, go live with them.
29. Do not sleep on the weekends, alternate between standing in the middle of a room staring at advertisements, sitting in a folding chair facing the wall and running from one end of your street to the other as fast as you possibly can with a fully-packed piece of carry-on luggage. Consume only fast food and alcohol. Then, go to work on Monday and work 15 hours non-stop.
30. Go to work and live there for one or two months. Never venture more than 150 feet from your desk.
1 comment:
I know that I should be feeling this great welling of sympathy for you but all I can do is laugh. I'm sorry!
P.S. - Thanks for the baking tips. You don't have to be at sea to make a lopsided cake!
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