Back in the ‘Ol Canoe Club’ we spent eight weeks in a linear fashion on certain rules, regulations, brainwashing techniques as well as a half dozen other uniformed ways of spending your life out at sea… if it didn’t teach you anything else, you remembered how to professionally fold your clothes into a space the size of a shoe box and… well… about an infinite different ways to tell if a girl has VD!!!
After so many years of getting all this poured into the ol’ nogg’n some things just become a force of habit. You don’t have to think about it anymore it just becomes a way of life and you accept it…
Never thought in a million years I’d carry on with some of those habits two years after retiring… I guess some things just don’t go away!!!
I knew for sure I was gonna grow a gaudamned mullet when I got out… that was the fashion when I went in… But my other half prohibits me from gett’n within twenty feet of the bedroom unless I cut that hair… and a goatee??? Forget it… my little princess of a daughter reminds me everyday to shave those whiskers or no good morning hugs and kisses…
No, life ain’t what I thought it’d be like when I became civilianized… just like that movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’… I’ve been institutionalized and there ain’t no coming back from it… it’s forever implanted in your gaudammed brain…
Hell, you do things without even trying… Just the other day I got the ol’ slap on the wrist by our quality control people for running a line through my zeros and crossing my sevens…
“It looks like you are crossing them out.”
Well with the doctor’s office kind’a catch scratch I see day to day, how the hell can you tell the difference between a damned alphabetical ‘O’ and ‘0’… there’s a reason for it…
But I still print in all uppercase… and everyone always knows it’s me… but the only one who complains is my daughter…
“Daddy, that is not the correct way to write a sentence… you only capitalize the beginning and the names!”
At least I know they’re teaching her something right in school!!!
And my oldest daughter goes nuts when she hears me talking on the phone… I still pronounce the ol’ three as a tree and five as in Barney ‘Fife’… good ol’ radio jargon!!!
I guess she’ll never understand…
Then there are the extension cords and Christmas lights… you know I still wind them all up like heaving lines… good thing I don’t toss’m across the roof that way… just get me a monkey fist and I can make it happen!!!
Hell, just the other day I was coming outta the building where I work and the Operations Supervisor came from the other direction and said hello… ‘I CALLED HIM SIR!!!’
Of course he looked at me funny…
And when I leave the house I still have to tell the executive Officer (my wife) when I’ll be outside the permissible radius or end up in deep doo-doo!!! That would be the allowable distance permitted by my ol’ lady to make sure I’m home in time for dinner, mowing the lawn, or any other chore she’s got me handling on that particular day… hang’n Christmas lights and seasonal stuff about this time of year!!! Back in my Navy days the permissible radius was about 250 miles from the base within a 72 hour liberty… must’ve figured we were anchored down with bowling balls and anvils or something and couldn’t get anywhere fast…
The brass obviously underestimate the power of an E-3 full of testosterone and booze…
But at this point in my life I’m more interested in self preservation for the fear of being chased outta the house with a rolling pin… maybe the ol’ lady might even cozy up to me if I’m real good…
But one thing I know for sure will never change after all those years on the ‘Seven Seas’… Until I’m old and geezer like… I’m still gonna be tell’n Sea Stories and ‘no shitters’ cause you gotta consider the places I’ve been and the kind’a things I’ve seen… hold on to your knickers and white hats cause ‘YOU AIN’T GONNA BELIEVE THIS SHIT!!!!!!
Skinny, fat, fat, skinny! haha
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about that yesterday when I was Swabbing the Kitchen floor and realized how many women do not actually know how to use a regular mop. Guess that is why sponge mops were invented. In the Navy you do it right or do it again!
ReplyDeleteI still say niner instead of nine. When reciting off a string of numbers it like 0069, it is not o,o,six,nine it is zero,zero,six,niner. I can't tell how many times people look at me like i am crazy when I do this.
ReplyDeleteAt least after almost 20 years out I don't step over kneeknockers when walking inside of doors. Only took about 5 years for me to quit doing that.
Been out a while now and to this day my XO refuses to fold my underwear properly; gets mad at me when I refold it to specs.
ReplyDeleteTaught my wife to fold laundry "Navy style" She folds ALL the laundry that way now, even our 10 year olds!
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ReplyDelete{{GRRRIN!!}}
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