THE LIGHTER SIDE- (Sent in by John "Fat Rat" Russell)

How To Simulate Shipboard Life

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months

straight.

2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the

outside of the walls.

3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then

pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray".

4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go

the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can,

pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the

freezing cold.

5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.

6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water

temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down

to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family

that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is

secured.

7. Raise your bed to within 16 inches of the ceiling. Cut your

sheets in half, use only two of these modified sheets, and a dusty,

thread bare gray wool blanket. Wash them only once a month.

Every two months, lose one sheet in the laundry.

8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5 am, and

blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout

"Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to

do the following day, then stand in the back yard (rain or shine) at 6

am while she reads it to you.

10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days

straight, then lock yourself out of the bathroom for 12 hours, and hang

a sign on the door that reads "Secured-contact OA division at

X-3053".

11. Submit a request chit to your father-in-law, asking if it's

ok for you to leave your house before 3pm.

12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then

board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the

6 months is up, take down the boards, wave at your friends and

family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the

next day - you have duty.

13. Shower with above-mentioned friends.

14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in

your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.). Make

them requalify on each appliance every six months.

15. Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure

every 15 minutes.

16. Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going

anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lighted off".

17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your

driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. (Now sweepers, man

your brooms, clean sweepdown fore and aft, empty all trash over the

fantail)

18. Repaint your entire house once a month.

19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and

seasoning you can get your hands on.

20. Use eighteen scoops of budget coffee grounds per pot, and

allow each pot to sit 5 hours before drinking. Use the same filter until

it is in shreds. Add two drops of motor oil per pot to achieve authentic

flavor.

21. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read

your magazines, and randomly lose about every 5th item. Once a month,

hold up one bag of mail until after the next three bags are delivered.

All newspapers must be at least five weeks old.

22. Spend over $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but

only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.

23. Avoid watching TV with the exception of movies which are

played in the middle of the night. Have the family vote on which movie

to watch from the selection of the same 24 titles, all over three

years old, and then show a different one.

24. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a weekly haircut, using

goat shears.

25. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants. Get a stencil

and mark your last name over the hip pocket of every pair of trousers

that you own.

26. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call

it "world travel".

27. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonalds, and NOT get

promoted.

28. Ensure that any promotions you do get are from stepping on

the dead bodies of your co-workers.

29. Have your neighbor use a power hammer to nail aluminum siding

on your house after your have gone to bed.

30. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a

megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under

attack, and order them to man their battle stations. ("General quarters,

general quarters, all hands man your battle stations") Turn off all

electricity and plumbing, close all windows and doors, and leave them at

their GQ stations for over four hours.

31. Make your family menu a week ahead of time and do so without

checking the pantry and refrigerator.

32. Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family

that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at

least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you

are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until

they don't pay attention to the menu any more so they just ask for hot

dogs.

33. When baking a cake, prop up one side of the pan while it is

in the oven. Spread icing on real thick to level it off.

34. In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your

driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at

4-hour intervals.

35. Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then

tell them that at the end of the 6th week you're going to take them to

Disneyland for "weekend liberty". When the end of the 6th week

rolls around, drive around the outside of the park for two hours before

you inform them that Disneyland has been canceled due to the fact

that they need to get ready for Engineering-certification, and that it

will be another week before they can leave the house.

36. In your grim, gray dumpster (refer to #1), with 200 of your

not-so-closest friend (cite para. 12) regardless of gender, suffer

through PMS!

37. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door

with a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after

you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and

mumble "Sorry, wrong rack."

38. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of

your bathtub, move the shower head to chest level. When you take

showers, make sure you shut off the water while you soap down.

39. When there is a thunderstorm in your area, find a wobbly

rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous.

have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

40. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

41. For ex-engineering types: leave the lawn mower running in

your living room eight hours a day.

42. Have the paperboy give you every seventh haircut. (refer to

#24)

43. Once a week, use the air compressor that is bolted to your

dining room floor to blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure

the wind carries the soot onto your neighbors house. Ignore his

complaints.

44. Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it

in a paint sprayer. Spray it over the roof of your house onto your

neighbor's car. Ignore his complaints.

45. Lock wire the lug nuts on your car.

46. Buy a trash compactor, but use it only once a week. Store the

garbage on the other side of your bathtub.

47. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich on stale bread.

48. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night,

jump up and get dressed as fast as you can making sure you button up the

top button on your shirt, stuff your pants into your socks. Run out

into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.

49. Once a month, take every major appliance apart and put them

back together again.

50. Install a fluorescent lamp under the coffee table and then

get under it and read books.

51. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front

and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you

pass through one of them. Move the doorknob to the center of every

door.

52. Every so often, throw the cat in the pool and shout "Man

overboard, starboard side" Then run into the house and sweep all the

pots and dishes off the counter. Yell at the wife and kids and friends for

not having the kitchen "stowed for sea."

53. Put on the headphones from your stereo set, but don't plug

them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck with string. Go stand in

front of your stove. Say ... to no one in particular "Stove manned and

ready" Stand there for three or four hours. And say again to no one in

particular "stove secured" Roll up your headphones and paper cup and place

them in a box.

54. Every morning, mop your bathroom floor with a filthy mop.

Rinse the mop in your bathtub.

55. At least once a day, re-wax your hallway. Allow no one to

pass through while sweeping, mopping, waiting for the floor to dry,

applying wax, waiting for the wax to dry, or buffing with a floor

polisher. Do this chore during peak hours of the day.

56. Once a week, repaint your entire hallway. Allow no one to

pass while painting, or waiting for the paint to dry.

57. The only milk you should allow in your house should have

expiration dates from six months ago. And only one cup is allowed per

meal, served in a plastic coffee cup.

58. At least once per day, eat a meal without using forks. Once a

month, withhold the spoons or knives also.

59. Reduce your closet to one metal locker measuring 18 by 18

inches.